Yup, it’s still here. Sorry for the lack of updates lately. When you spend all day typing at work and get home only to do more stuff, the writing seems to take a curb side. I hate it when it does that as I really love to sit and wrote. Giving my brain the chance to empty out its daily contents so I can start fresh the next day. So given the updates as of late you can imagine there is a lot in my head right now. Sadly, it’s not all going to be emptied out here. As much as I love pouring out all of my feelings and such here, there are some things that just don’t need to be pasted all over the interweb.
As of late there has been not too much of note going on. Yesterday was Andrew’s 14th birthday. This year I got him his own Guitar. It’s an acoustic Epiphone PR-150. It got very good reviews on all the sites I checked out, and it came at a great deal with lots of accessories. Unfortunately, while tuning it for the first time, he wound the E-string a tad too tight and it snapped. He didn’t even get the chance to play too much. I picked up new strings and we spent about 30 min learning how to re-string a guitar! I also picked him up a 512mb Ipod shuffle. We are an Itunes house so I wanted to get him something that would integrate with Itunes so he could easily drag the music he wants to it. Given that he is always listening to music, he can swap tunes off it really quick and easy.
Last night we went out for his birthday dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack. We had gone there a few times before as well as going last year on his birthday. When we walked in, I mentioned to the hostess that it was Andrews birthday (in hopes of embarrassing him in public, like any good Father) and she sat us very quickly. The place was moderately filled for a Wednesday evening. We browsed the menu and figured out what we wanted to eat. A full 15 minutes later we finally got a visit from our waiter with the first of many “I’m sorry it took so long.” We placed our order for two of their “Complete Meals” which has the appetizer and deserts. I also mentioned to him about Andrews birthday. The waiter made promises, of course, for speedy service and getting bread out quickly before the appetizers.
The drinks came out quick, but then we lost our waiter again. A bus boy brought out the appetizers and they were eaten and dishes cleared before we finally got some bread. Our “Speedy” waiter claimed that in “A minute and a half” our food would be out. 10 min later he came back saying (with yet another “Sorry for taking so long”) the food was almost ready. 2 full baskets of bread later, we get our food. The whole time we watch the waiters come out for two other birthdays in the restaurant (Andrew jumped every time he heard the clapping start, thinking it was coming towards him). The deserts were about the only thing that came out in a timely fashion. We boxed up our food and sat and waited.
And Waited
And Waited
20 minutes later we see our waiter. At this point we have been there for about an hour and a half. He come by and picks up the remaining plates and asks about the food. That’s it. I figure he is on his way back to get the check or to come out for the birthday things. Nope, we lost him again for another 10 min. When he comes back (mind you we have been sitting there with no plates and food boxed for 10 full minutes) he asks if we were “Ready for that birthday thing.” It’s now just after 8:30pm. We got to Joe’s at around 6:50pm. 2 people, in a restaurant that is not all that busy. I was pissed. I told him, “No, I’ll just take my check please, it’s far too late for that. Every time he came by the table it was some sob story about “Things are running slow back there” yet every other waiter managed it just fine. I know, I had plenty of time to watch them. Another 5 min goes by while he prints out the check. Big surprise, he doesn’t compensate on the check or anything. He just drops off the check with a “Sorry for the worst service in the world” comment. I made a point of talking to the Manager about the horrible service. He seemed sympathetic and offered us a free trip back as “His guests” where they would re-do his birthday dinner.
Now, let me clear up something. I like Joe’s Crab Shack. The food has always been great and every other time we have been there, the service was amazing. I have nothing against them. Some people though. Having done the whole waiting tables thing before, I know how it is. This guy wouldn’t even come up with a reason as to why he was gone, just “sorry”. So aggravating! We went home and I sat and watched “Bones” to cheer me up. Cause nothing makes one happy than watching 2 wives fight over their newly liquefied ex-husband!
Ok, so I have been out of it for the past few weeks. Work has absolutely hammered me. With different servers failing and political crap going back and forth, when I get home I don’t want to go any where near the PC and I am way to busy at work to do stuff there. So I just needed to take a break from everything. I haven’t posted on any boards, not blogged, anything! I have had a number of things that I wish I could have blogged about too! We missed out on Talk like a pirate day. I finally got around to canceling my COV account which means I am MMORPG free at the moment. Those are just a few.
A friend of mine has introduced me to some new music too! While we were at DragonCon, I was walking through the area where a lot of the bands have booths. Now, these are usually some punk bands, or goth bands etc. They all pretty much sound the same and the band next to them. After a while I stopped paying attention to them. Well, there was this one guy down towards the end of the room, Voltaire. He had a very typical looking booth set up, lots of black, lots of emo feel to it. So, I really didn’t pay much attention to it at all. 
Flash forward to the now. I decide to give a few of the tracks a listen to and holy cow! This is NOT your typical goth band. Actually is have only trace amounts of the goth feel to it. I actually sat with my headphones on at work and zoned out while focusing on my work. I have to say I was very much floored by the sound of the music. One of the tracks actually got me so lost in the rhythm and music that I lost track of the lyrics. His 
Outside of all that, you know, all the stressful crap, it’s been pretty tame as far as events and such. Last week Andrew and I did attend a garrison event where we trooped the Best Buy release of the Original Trilogy of Star Wars on DVD (again). School has also kept me busy as of late. I am currently in a “Programming Concepts” class which is supposed to teach the logic and layout of programming. So far I have learned that my teacher is an ass and has no desire to actually teach and help students. I have had a few very bad conversations with him and have finally taken it to my Student advisor. We’ll see how this turns out.
Back in January of 2005 I reposted my story of 9/11. Instead of just re-posting it again (Mostly because I don’t want to go through and adjust for dates and times and stuff) here is the direct link to the story: 
Stevie: “Hi!”
You know how when you go out and drink heavily, the next morning you are usually extremely tired, sore, and just plain running in slo-mo? Well, the con hangover is a lot like that. DragonCon lasted for 4 days. Add on top of that a 10 hour drive there and a 10 hour drive back. I feel all of the normal hangover effects, the headache, the tiredness, the not wanting to eat, etc.. Not to mention that surreal feeling of being home and trying to get back to a normal routine. Work is more than happy to help me out with that as I jumped back into fixing all the crap that broke while I was gone so, I got that going for me.
