cerith

Okay, so I know it's been like, 3 months since I've posted. I gotta stop doing that. Anyway...

This past Christmas was my first Christmas away from home. It was pretty cool though. My brother and I went in together and got mom and dad a pretty decent surround sound system to go with the new 42-in HDTV they bought not too long ago. They were ecstatic when they opened it, and that made it all worth it. That was pretty much the highlight of my Christmas, and it was awesome.

The only major downside of Christmas was that it was the first time since my cousin got discharged from the military that he couldn't join us for Christmas. At the moment, he's at a facility called Clay Crossing, which is an alcoholism recovery center. Basically he was going through 24 packs of beer in a day. It sucked not having him there, but I'm glad to see he's getting help.

Living with my brother for about 3 months now has been pretty cool. Although I don't really spend much time at the house, with my weird work hours, so I'm pretty much only visible here on the weekends. We're still trying to sell the house, and the current plan is that once this house sells, we'll go in on an apartment together. It's kind of a complicated situation at the moment. Basically there's a lot of emotional attachment for my brother to this house, since it's the first house that he and his now separated wife bought together. He needs to pretty much sell the house and get away from the house for about 6 months, to straighten out his head, and get his feet under him again.

There's a Tool concert coming up here on Mar. 29. I'm kidnapping my brother and taking him there for a birthday present. We went a couple of years ago, and my brother took me for my birthday, so it's kinda like repaying the favor.

Lately Nicole and I have been talking more and more again, and that's been awesome. I missed talking to her, and we went through a long period there where we didn't talk. I really need to go see her, since she's not that far from me anymore.

Work's been weird. I hate phone work, but everything else is pretty cool. I just wish I could do more for customers, I wish I could do a system exchange for just about anyone who asks, I wish I could just go to their house and fix their system for them, instead of trying to direct them over the phone. It's rewarding though when they want to send my manager an e-mail about how much I've helped them though.

I'm supposed to start actually helping in the interview process later this week and next week. That's going to be interesting. The cool thing is that it takes me away from the phones, which is awesome, but it's also a sign of recognition, which is even better. I'm also supposed to start dispatch training, which is another sign of recognition. The next few weeks will give me the opportunities to be recognized even more, and honestly, anything to get me off the phones, I'm happy with.

So, I know I talked about the Dell job in my last post, but I wanted to actually post what's happened in the last month or so.

Well, it's been a while, and a lot has happened, so this might be a lengthy, and hopefully interesting, post.

So, when I last posted, I was in the whole job search mode. And after posting my resume on Monster.com, I finally hit a vein of potentional employers. I had about 5 interviews in about 2 weeks. The first one I had was with the head of the IT Section at a local Pediatric Department of a Hospital. The interview went well I thought, but apparantly they have a policy where they have to have a certain amount of folks apply for the job before the hiring process can begin, and they apparantly didn't hit that goal. At least not for a while after I applied. They may have now, and just gone with someone else. I'm kinda glad now, because I'm making about 10k more a year than I would have if I worked for them. Anyway, the next two interviews I got through a local staffing agency. One was with a company that sets up Dog Shows for the Oklahoma area. It was a small company, that used a lot of older equipment, but it would've been cool to work there. The only real drawback was that they still use an AS400 system, of which I only had a little experience with when I worked at Fife. Anyway, they decided to go with someone else. A couple of days later, I had an interview with a pretty sizable company that installs and maintains card reader services for various other companies. Ever used your Credit Card to pay for something from Sonic? This company did that. The guy interviewed with though came off as if the job would've been super boring, and monotous, and basically gave me the impression that I really shouldn't take the job. They didn't offer me a position anyway, so that worked out.

The last two interviews were with Dell. The first interview I did was for I think the Gold Server Division. Basically I would've been working with data storage devices (servers), that other Fortune 500 Companies have purchased from Dell, and resolving any issues that the companies IT folks were having. I don't know why they wanted to interview me. I didn't have much server experience, and I didn't really indicate that on my resume. But they decided to grant me an interview, and needless to say, they didn't extend to me an offer of employment for that. About a week later though, I got another call for an interview for the Home and Small Business level. Personally, I thought I botched the interview, but about week after that, I get a call asking me to come in, since they wanted to offer me a position.

So, as of last Monday, I work for Dell, as a Level 2 Tech Support. There are a couple of things I don't like though. One is that they essentially changed the job on me for which I interviewed for. They said that we'd be working mostly on the new XPS systems, but it seems we're mostly gonna be taking calls on the Dimension and Latitude lines of computers. The other thing is that this whole group of folks is part of a new thing Dell is trying out, so there's a lot of misinformation, and a lot of things that change from day to day. But in the end, it's a call center, and I'll be dealing with folks who call in, and all that fun stuffs. The pay is pretty decent. Way more than what I was expecting to earn by the time I started the whole job search thing, so I'm pretty happy about that. The thing I really don't like though are the hours. I'll be working from 11am - 8pm. That pretty much kills any sort of gaming (of which I'm an avid WoW player) for me. The upside is that I get to avoid traffic most of the time, and I get to sleep late.

So yeah, this week has been mostly training. Next week I start taking live calls. So that should be rather interesting...

The other piece of pretty important news is that I'm moving in a few weeks. I'm going to be moving in with my brother to help him out with the mortgage payment and other stuff. It'll be pretty cool. I'm not sure how much he's gonna like having his little brother around all the time, but it should be interesting at the very least. But hopefully by the next time I post (yeah yeah, I know, I post pretty infrequently), I'll have some more to say about that whole situation.

Holy hell, someone actually thought it was a good idea to extend an offer of employment to me. WTF are they thinking?

Well I got a call this morning from Dell. They said that my interview last week went well, and with that in mind, they'd like to offer me a position. Yes, it is a Call Center, and yes, I'd be Tech Support, but hey, it's a job, and really, the pay is pretty freakin nice. It's almost $16/hr. Kinda hard to pass that up.

Anyway, I don't start for a few weeks, so it's like a mini vacation for a few weeks, heh.

So yay for not being unemployed anymore!

Changing this a little bit. A friend of mine doesn't get to watch the show, so I promised her I'd post Bill Maher's new rules each week from HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher.
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It is time for New Rules, everybody!

All right. New Rule: Americans can't make fun of Kim Jung Il's hair as long as we're represented by this guy. [photo of John Bolton] Who is weirder, the guy whose look says, "I'm stuck in the fifties," or the guy who says - whose look says, "Got milk?"

New Rule: The world has to wake up and do something about Darfur. And on the way back - on the way back, they should stop by Paris and help this lady. [photo of extremely thin model]

New Rule: Men don't care how expensive your bra is. They just need to know if it unfastens in the front or the back. The Victoria's Secret Christmas catalogue features a $6.5 million diamond-studded bra. And, guys, it's the perfect bra for mistresses because she's almost guaranteed not to leave it in your truck.

New Rule: Mel Gibson can't do another major TV interview unless he's rip-roaring drunk. Mel, enough of this guy who talks about "healing" and explains why he's not a "monster," and how he feels "powerless" over everything. Sounds like someone's spent too much time in rehab listening to their Jew therapist.

Now, get your Nazi mojo back, Mr. Braveheart-and march back out there and call Diane Sawyer "sugar tits."

New Rule: Restaurants can't make you wait until the rest of your party has arrived. Any restaurant that makes you wait is calling you a liar. They're saying, "You have five friends?" "Yeah, we'll see." Listen up, Miss Drunk-with-power-restaurant-hostess, when I say my friends are on the way, they're on the way. So either show me to a table, or this is the last time I celebrate my birthday at Chuck E. Cheese.

"And finally, New Rule: If you think the worst thing Congress doesn't protect young people from is Mark Foley, then wake up and smell the burning planet. The - the ice caps are cracking, the coral reefs are bleaching, and our poisoned groundwater has turned spinach into a "side dish of mass destruction." Read the labels on your food. It turns out the healthiest thing you can put in your body is Mark Foley's penis.

But that's America for you: a red herring culture, always scared by the wrong things. The fact is, there are a lot of creepy, middle-aged men out there lusting for your kids. They work for MTV, the pharmaceutical industry, McDonald's, Marlboro, and K Street.

And recently, there's been a rash of strangers making their way onto school campuses and targeting your children for death. They're called military recruiters. More young Americans were crippled in Iraq last month than any month in the last two years. And the scandal is that Mark Foley wants to show them a good time before they go?

When will our closeted gay congressmen learn, our boys aren't for pleasure, they're for cannon fodder? Why aren't Democrats and the media hammering away every day about who we're supposed to be fighting for over there, and what the plan is? Yes, Mark Foley was wrong to ask teenagers how long their penis was. But at least someone on Capitol Hill was asking questions.

You know who else is grabbing your kids at too young an age? Merck, Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline. By convincing you that your kids are depressed, hyperactive or suffering from ADD. In the last decade, the number of children prescribed anti-psychotic drugs in America increased by over 400%. Which means either that our children are going insane-which we might look on as a problem-or more likely, we have, for profit, created a nation of little junkies.

So, stop with the righteous indignation about predators. This whole country is trying to get inside your kid's pants, because that's where he keeps his wallet.

I don't care - I don't care if Mark Foley had been asking boys to describe their penis because I have some sad news for you: your kid is so larded out on Cheetohs and YooHoo, he can't even see his penis. So many of our kids are fat drug addicts nowadays, it's almost as if Rush Limbaugh had puppies!

So we can pretend that the biggest threat to our children is some creep on the Internet, or we can admit it's us. Because when your son can't find France on a map, or touch his toes with his hands, or understand that the ads on TV are lying, including the one where the Marine turns into Lancelot-then the person fucking him...is you"

“Face the facts. Then act on them. It’s the only mantra I know, the only doctrine I have to offer you, and it’s harder than you’d think, because I swear humans seem hardwired to do anything but.

Face the facts. Don’t pray, don’t wish, don’t buy into centuries-old dogma and dead rhetoric. Don’t give in to conditioning or your visions or your fucked-up sense of… whatever.

Face the facts. Then act.”

—Quellcrist Falconer before the attack on Milport, from Richard Morgan’s Broken Angels

None of the following is mine. It's just a transcript of a 'rant' that Keith Olbermann went on during his 'Countdown' show on 9/11/2006. I just happen to agree with most, if not all of it.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Half a lifetime ago, I worked in this now-empty space. And for 40 days after the attacks, I worked here again, trying to make sense of what happened, and was yet to happen, as a reporter.

All the time, I knew that the very air I breathed contained the remains of thousands of people, including four of my friends, two in the planes and -- as I discovered from those "missing posters" seared still into my soul -- two more in the Towers.

And I knew too, that this was the pyre for hundreds of New York policemen and firemen, of whom my family can claim half a dozen or more, as our ancestors.

I belabor this to emphasize that, for me this was, and is, and always shall be, personal.

And anyone who claims that I and others like me are "soft,"or have "forgotten" the lessons of what happened here is at best a grasping, opportunistic, dilettante and at worst, an idiot whether he is a commentator, or a Vice President, or a President.

However, of all the things those of us who were here five years ago could have forecast -- of all the nightmares that unfolded before our eyes, and the others that unfolded only in our minds -- none of us could have predicted this.

Five years later this space is still empty.

Five years later there is no memorial to the dead.

Five years later there is no building rising to show with proud defiance that we would not have our America wrung from us, by cowards and criminals.

Five years later this country's wound is still open.

Five years later this country's mass grave is still unmarked.

Five years later this is still just a background for a photo-op.

It is beyond shameful.

At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial -- barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field -- Mr. Lincoln said, "we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract."

Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.

Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. "We cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground." So we won't.

Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they're doing instead of doing any job at all.

Five years later, Mr. Bush, we are still fighting the terrorists on these streets. And look carefully, sir, on these 16 empty acres. The terrorists are clearly, still winning.

And, in a crime against every victim here and every patriotic sentiment you mouthed but did not enact, you have done nothing about it.

And there is something worse still than this vast gaping hole in this city, and in the fabric of our nation. There is its symbolism of the promise unfulfilled, the urgent oath, reduced to lazy execution.

The only positive on 9/11 and the days and weeks that so slowly and painfully followed it was the unanimous humanity, here, and throughout the country. The government, the President in particular, was given every possible measure of support.

Those who did not belong to his party -- tabled that.

Those who doubted the mechanics of his election -- ignored that.

Those who wondered of his qualifications -- forgot that.

History teaches us that nearly unanimous support of a government cannot be taken away from that government by its critics. It can only be squandered by those who use it not to heal a nation's wounds, but to take political advantage.

Terrorists did not come and steal our newly-regained sense of being American first, and political, fiftieth. Nor did the Democrats. Nor did the media. Nor did the people.

The President -- and those around him -- did that.

They promised bi-partisanship, and then showed that to them, "bi-partisanship" meant that their party would rule and the rest would have to follow, or be branded, with ever-escalating hysteria, as morally or intellectually confused, as appeasers, as those who, in the Vice President's words yesterday, "validate the strategy of the terrorists."

They promised protection, and then showed that to them "protection" meant going to war against a despot whose hand they had once shaken, a despot who we now learn from our own Senate Intelligence Committee, hated al-Qaida as much as we did.

The polite phrase for how so many of us were duped into supporting a war, on the false premise that it had 'something to do' with 9/11 is "lying by implication."

The impolite phrase is "impeachable offense."

Not once in now five years has this President ever offered to assume responsibility for the failures that led to this empty space, and to this, the current, curdled, version of our beloved country.

Still, there is a last snapping flame from a final candle of respect and fairness: even his most virulent critics have never suggested he alone bears the full brunt of the blame for 9/11.

Half the time, in fact, this President has been so gently treated, that he has seemed not even to be the man most responsible for anything in his own administration.

Yet what is happening this very night?

A mini-series, created, influenced -- possibly financed by -- the most radical and cold of domestic political Machiavellis, continues to be televised into our homes.

The documented truths of the last fifteen years are replaced by bald-faced lies; the talking points of the current regime parroted; the whole sorry story blurred, by spin, to make the party out of office seem vacillating and impotent, and the party in office, seem like the only option.

How dare you, Mr. President, after taking cynical advantage of the unanimity and love, and transmuting it into fraudulent war and needless death, after monstrously transforming it into fear and suspicion and turning that fear into the campaign slogan of three elections? How dare you -- or those around you -- ever "spin" 9/11?

Just as the terrorists have succeeded -- are still succeeding -- as long as there is no memorial and no construction here at Ground Zero.

So, too, have they succeeded, and are still succeeding as long as this government uses 9/11 as a wedge to pit Americans against Americans.

This is an odd point to cite a television program, especially one from March of 1960. But as Disney's continuing sell-out of the truth (and this country) suggests, even television programs can be powerful things.

And long ago, a series called "The Twilight Zone" broadcast a riveting episode entitled "The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street."

In brief: a meteor sparks rumors of an invasion by extra-terrestrials disguised as humans. The electricity goes out. A neighbor pleads for calm. Suddenly his car -- and only his car -- starts. Someone suggests he must be the alien. Then another man's lights go on. As charges and suspicion and panic overtake the street, guns are inevitably produced. An "alien" is shot -- but he turns out to be just another neighbor, returning from going for help. The camera pulls back to a near-by hill, where two extra-terrestrials are seen manipulating a small device that can jam electricity. The veteran tells his novice that there's no need to actually attack, that you just turn off a few of the human machines and then, "they pick the most dangerous enemy they can find, and it's themselves."

And then, in perhaps his finest piece of writing, Rod Serling sums it up with words of remarkable prescience, given where we find ourselves tonight: "The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men.

"For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy, and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own -- for the children, and the children yet unborn."

When those who dissent are told time and time again -- as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus -- that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of it, we are somehow un-American...When we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have "forgotten the lessons of 9/11"... look into this empty space behind me and the bi-partisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me:

Who has left this hole in the ground?

We have not forgotten, Mr. President.

You have.

May this country forgive you."

I don't understand it. How someone can have blind allegience to something so fierce, that they will go out if their way to bash the other side, without once seeing the wrongs of their own side. I don't understand the logic of someone who blindly follows along without question, without criticism. It's like they're being lead on a leash, or being controlled via strings by some unknown force.

Don't get me wrong, loyalty is all fine and dandy. But loyalty to the point that you'd fall on a sword for reasons you don't even understand, taking the blame for something without knowing what it is you're being blamed for, I can't understand that. I can't wrap my head around it. It doesn't make sense.

I find myself to be rather centrist in my beliefs. I'm conservative in some things, I'm liberal in others. I don't blindly follow either ideology, and I find liberal extremists to be just as fucking nuts as the conservative extremists. Having a simple discussion with either one is so frustrating and infuriating, because they refuse to even see the other side, refuse to accept that there is some other points of view. They sit there and bash each other for things that their own "side" has done themselves, and proclaim that their side is better, when in reality, both sides are equally absurd.

And the worst part is - they both want their side to be the law of the land. They both are so delusional in their thinking that they truly believe that their way is the only correct way, and that there are no other ways, and if you believe any other way, you are wrong. They force their agendas where possible, leaving the rest of us to suffer while they have their power struggle, where our basic rights to life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness gets stripped away little by little, while they sing their songs of freedom, democracy and justice.

So, I just returned from seeing The DaVinci Code. Seeing as how I havn't really stuck to my self imposed one rant per week idea, I think it's time for a rant. I've been told that the movie follows the book pretty closely, so with that in mind, here we go!

First off, I liked it. There were some areas that seemed to be stretched a bit, but I really can't go into that without giving the story away. I think I finally understand why folks are so upset over the book / movie. It's a story that makes you think. It makes a point to bring about other theories about the life of Jesus Christ. The Church doesn't like this, as thinking can often lead to questioning, which can lead to the search for truth. This seems rather odd though. Considering the fact that faith is based on something that cannot be proven or disproven, should any truth be found that either prove or disproves the origion of Christ, and the other details of Christianity, then it ceases being based on faith, and hence, ceases being a religion, but that's another rant for another time.

My real question though is, say the story is true. Say Jesus married Mary Magdoline, and had a child named Sarah, and started a royal bloodline. How does this change Christ' message? Why couldn't Jesus had been a husband and father, and still did all the things he did? He would have still died for our sins just the same. The Golden rule still applies. Oddly though, it's rarely followed, which is a shame.

In all the arguing over the details, I think the message has gotten lost. What's ironic here is that many people have died over the details in the many wars fought in God's name, which goes againts the entire message Christ was preaching. To paraphrse a line from the book / movie, all the wars over religion started as soon as the worshipping of one God came about.

In otherwords, it really shouldn't matter if Christ did marry and have a child. It's the message that's important, and that's been overlooked, literally for centuries.

So I'm going to try something new for me. I'm going to try to do at least one rant a week, and post it here. This is the first of that series.

So at dinner tonight, the subject of a television show that was on last night came up. The show was put on by one of the local news stations, and was dedicated to being critical of the current State Foster Care program. It's been a hot topic in this area ever since the story of Briggs, a child who was taken out of the Foster Home, for one reason or another, and placed back with her biological parents, only to end up dead a short time after. It didn't help matters when the news station learned that the father of the child had been serving in Iraq, and came home to find his child dead, and is told that DHS is to blame.

Surely, I'm not defending DHS am I? Yes, actually, I am. I'm fully aware that DHS, and may other government agencies have their problems. Proclaiming that the death of a child is due to the carelessness of DHS however, is 1) completely devoid of any factual information, and 2) only serves to further the seething hatred of government agencies already present. I suppose I have to say that my father works for DHS, so I freely admit that I may see things from a different perspective, which may include a degree of bias.

The father was, of course, upset and angry, which was to be expected, and I feel for him as well. However, not once did the show ever cover how the process works of taking a child away from their home. Not once did it mention that the Department of Human Services only suggest certain actions, and the final say on what happens is left up to a judge who signs the order to remove a child. Instead, they depicted a dead child, a war hero, and a state bureaucracy who was to blame for the situation. You ask just about anyone in this state the question of "Who removes the child from the home?", and they'll answer "DHS." Little do they know that DHS doesn't do this. In actuality, the police are the ones who go into the home, with the court order signed by the judge, and remove the child. But the media doesn't tell this side of the story. Instead, they sensationalize the story, and tell folks that DHS is to blame for all the problems, and all because it gets better ratings than actually telling the entire story.

I suppose not everyone knows that DHS, and other government agencies, operate under state and federal laws set by the local and federal legislature. For this, I blame the education system and the media, as they work pretty hand in hand here. Local civics has never been a priority here. You go ask folks around here who their two senators are who represent them, I guarantee you at least 7 out of 10 folks can't answer that question. Ask them who the Lieutenant Governor is, and they'll give you a blank stare. And this is the crux of the problem. Folks simply do not understand how the process works at the local level. And it's not taught in schools, oh no, at least not on a High School level. Instead, the focus is squarely on the federal government, nevermind the fact that decisions made by the state and local governments effect them far more than decisions made by the federal government. The media knows this. They know that if folks don't even understand how the legislature works, surely they can't understand how a government agency like DHS works. And they're right.

And they exploit it. All they have to do is tell you the problem and who's to blame for it, without giving the full story. And people eat it up like candy. They devour it without question. The media tells the story, people watch and get upset, and these very ill-informed people are the ones who demand that justice be brought to places like DHS. And people keep coming back. They keep eating up these false stories and half-truths spouted by the media, because they don't know any better. All the while the media is smiling, as their ratings contiue to climb and few more gold coins line their pockets.

Yeah yeah, I know, it's been forever since I last updated.

So, I guess several things have happened since I last posted in early March. The Quiz Bowl team I was on did, rather uh... poorly. We placed 5th out of five teams. I guess the fact that one of the members on the team arrived drunk / hungover, and never really recovered by the time our contest was up. It wasn't that big of a deal to me - regardless of how the Quiz Bowl did, I was still going to the State competition for winning the District competition for another event a month or so before (will get to the State competition in a bit.)

Work's been interesting. The guy I'm effectively working for had surgery on his shoulder on Monday, for an accident he had almost 2 months ago. Apparantly they wanted to see if the bone would heal on it's own, but it never did. Good news is, it prompted them to ask me to stay on through the end of the school semester. The origional plan was that I'd only work for about a month or so, so it works for me.

School's been weird. For the record, Linux is an interesting but annoying OS. I can see the benefits of it, but I found it to be quite annoying in several areas. It's basically pure command-line, so memorizing a bunch of commands is a requirement, which is my downfall. The GUI version of the OS is nice, but to unlock Linux' full potential, you need to know and understand the command-line interface. Anyway, I finished that, and now I'm working on Copper Cabling. As the name suggest, it's basically learning about various different copper-based cables, and eventually learning how to build copper cables from scratch (a bit misleading - they provide the actual wire-base, you have to make it into a certain kind of cable through certain jackets and different arrangement of the colored cords inside the cable). Anyway, I'm sure that was boring as hell to read, so I'll move on.

The SkillsUSA State Conference / Competition was this last week, from Tuesday through Thursday, up in Tulsa. Let me say that a 2 hour ride in a standard yellow school bus sucks, especially with like, 30 kids packed into it. Somehow managed to get some sleep during the ride though, so it wasn't all that bad. Downtown Tulsa has almost no commercial businesses (i.e. Best Buy, Wal-mart, etc.). A few fast-food places like Subway, but that's it. The closest Wal-mart was like, 8 miles away, from the hotel where we stayed. Me, being the smart person I am, forgot to pack a white shirt and a black tie, so Wednesday, I had to convince one of the instructers into convicing the bus driver to make a trip over to Wal-Mart. While I was there, picked up the new Tool album. Yeah yeah, I know, Wal-mart tends to censor their music, but you know, I was tired of waiting, heh.

Anyway, the competition itself was alright. I didn't do as well as I should have. There was some stuff I just blanked out on. This year seemed to have a huge emphasis on soft skills, which wasn't too bad. I think I did well on that. Just a couple of things here and there that kinda hurt me. Overall I placed 5th, out of about 12-15 folks. It was enough to be called up on stage at the award ceremony on Thursday morning. I'm kind of glad I didn't finish first though. I'm not sure I wanna deal with the National level.

So when I got home last night, Nicole and I talked, and played WoW for a bit together. It really felt like we reconnected last night. We had a rough spot there for a while. A lot seemed to be kind of chaotic, and I didn't know what was going to happen between us. But I don't know, for some reason, we seemed to just click again last night, and it felt great. I also have to say that starting over on a new server in WoW was also very fun. Getting to play with Nicole and her friend (who is also quite an interesting character, heh), was probably the most fun I've had in WoW for a while, even if we didn't get much further beyond level 5 or 6.

Anyway, this has turned into quite a lengthy post, and I'm also running short on time. I'll probably add another post later, to go over something I missed with this hastily written post.

Also, Nicole - If you read this, I'll send you that pic when I get home.