What? Doesn't everyone occasionally go 11 months without posting?
LJ friends, your prodigal son has returned. As most of you know, I've been living back at home for nearly a year due to money concerns and such, and as a result I've been sort of dead to the world. The four-hour round trip commute doesn't do much for my desire to drive back to the DC Metro area...but I digress. I miss this LJ, not to mention the friends page that had served as my only means of communication with some of you. So I can't make any promises about the frequency of my updates, but I'm making a good-faith attempt to get back on the horse. So, what's new with me since the Fall of 2008?
Vacations. This is a subject that is very much on my mind, since I'll be flying to San Diego next Thursday for a long weekend visit with dear married friends Jill and Tristan. We'll be catching a few Padres games and maybe going to the beach why not? It'll be my second trip out there; I dropped in on them in mid-February and we did the Zoo (I got to see gorillas and everything!) and an Andrew Bird concert that was mesmerizingly quirky. I also took a long weekend in late September to check out Williamsburg with my family (including a fairly lame colonial ghost tour and a day at Busch Gardens that was much better than that), a Memorial Day weekend trip to our cottage in Northeastern PA to open up the place for the summer, and a gloriously long week at Ocean City with the extended family at the beginning of this past month.
My sports blogging. I'm still doing this every day, for better or for worse. Highlights include an interview I gave to The Daily Times (which is no longer online, very lame), a podcast I did at Baltimore Sports Report, and a meetup with the webmaster of Uni Watch and some of the other local fans of that site. I'm also slowly but surely getting something resembling access. My site was featured in an Opening Day feature on Orioles blogs that ran in the Baltimore Sun, I interviewed former pitcher John O'Donoghue, and I was one of the guests at the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network's Blogger Night at Oriole Park at Camden Yards (we did a meet-and-greet with the TV announcers and a few ex-players, toured the TV production truck, and watched the ballgame from MASN's private suite, complete with free catered food and beer...all very cool). If I keep pushing myself, who knows? Maybe some day I can actually do this crap for a living.
Other outings. I've been to four total Orioles games this year, with more to come. The highlight was my first-ever Opening Day, when my dad and I saw the O's crush the vomitous Yankees 10-5 and the local fans actually outnumbered and out-shouted the invading Yanks fans (who were probably mostly from Jersey and/or Towson anyway) for once. For my sister's birthday in April I took her to Rams' Head Live to see Matt Nathanson and Jack's Mannequin in concert (great show, but I felt profoundly old in relation to the rest of the crowd). Also in April (busy month!) I took a day trip to Philly with my high school friend Geoff and my longtime partner in crime Boothe to see the TNA Lockdown wrestling pay-per-view. Local sports radio station WNST rented a coach bus for the event, and if there's a better way to travel than by drinking cheap beer and watching old wrestling DVDs while someone else navigates the horrors of I-95, than I don't know it. The actual show was ridiculously entertaining, as ancient wrestlers such as Sting, Mick Foley, Team 3-D, Scott Steiner, Kevin Nash, and Kurt Angle mixed it up with more contemporary stars...and every match was in a steel cage. Can't beat that.
Weddings a go-go. I've joked that it's Wedding Season. I'm in the midst of a four-wedding, six-month stretch that started in April with Jill and Tristan's nuptials in Lancaster, PA. Mikey was my DD, so I partook freely of delicious Lancaster Brewing Co. Strawberry Wheat beer, and of course it was good to see the portion of the Washington College crowd that I rarely hang out with. The following month, I drove down to Chestertown for former WaC classmate Melissa's wedding, and then bummed around campus for a bit since it was reunion weekend. In two weeks (holy crap) Mikey and Julianne tie the knot, and I'm a groomsman or something. Sadly I'll miss the bachelor party while I'm in San Diego. Finally, in late October my sister gets hitched. I'm the man of honor (yes, really), and I guess I'd better figure out a toast.
Miscellaneous. I bought a Nintendo Wii and I've been doing the Wii Fit for three months. I guess I feel a bit healthier, but I'm probably doing something wrong. My lower back is often tight and sore. My sister turned me into a full-fledged cat person with an assist from Gus and Jaq, her absurdly entertaining black-and-white Hemingway cats. I grew a full beard for a few months there, and it wasn't completely terrible, I don't think. I'm still writing for Crunchable at least once per month, I joined Twitter, I'm still slogging along at the old job (though I have just interviewed again at Social Security Admin. and have my fingers crossed), and I finally joined match.com earlier this week after months of dithering (the better to not die alone some day). I guess that's it.
So where do we go from here? Other than the online dating and job applying stuff that's ongoing, I need to find a house to buy in the near future now that I've saved up and there's a tax credit being dangled. No better time than now. I desperately hope to move closer to everyone that I know, which shouldn't be too hard. I also want to write a play for my Zero Hour folks, which I have been putting off for what seems like years.
If you're still reading, a) Thanks for not dropping me from your feed just because of a silly year-long hiatus, and b) you're free. Go have a drink or something.
Vacations. This is a subject that is very much on my mind, since I'll be flying to San Diego next Thursday for a long weekend visit with dear married friends Jill and Tristan. We'll be catching a few Padres games and maybe going to the beach why not? It'll be my second trip out there; I dropped in on them in mid-February and we did the Zoo (I got to see gorillas and everything!) and an Andrew Bird concert that was mesmerizingly quirky. I also took a long weekend in late September to check out Williamsburg with my family (including a fairly lame colonial ghost tour and a day at Busch Gardens that was much better than that), a Memorial Day weekend trip to our cottage in Northeastern PA to open up the place for the summer, and a gloriously long week at Ocean City with the extended family at the beginning of this past month.
My sports blogging. I'm still doing this every day, for better or for worse. Highlights include an interview I gave to The Daily Times (which is no longer online, very lame), a podcast I did at Baltimore Sports Report, and a meetup with the webmaster of Uni Watch and some of the other local fans of that site. I'm also slowly but surely getting something resembling access. My site was featured in an Opening Day feature on Orioles blogs that ran in the Baltimore Sun, I interviewed former pitcher John O'Donoghue, and I was one of the guests at the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network's Blogger Night at Oriole Park at Camden Yards (we did a meet-and-greet with the TV announcers and a few ex-players, toured the TV production truck, and watched the ballgame from MASN's private suite, complete with free catered food and beer...all very cool). If I keep pushing myself, who knows? Maybe some day I can actually do this crap for a living.
Other outings. I've been to four total Orioles games this year, with more to come. The highlight was my first-ever Opening Day, when my dad and I saw the O's crush the vomitous Yankees 10-5 and the local fans actually outnumbered and out-shouted the invading Yanks fans (who were probably mostly from Jersey and/or Towson anyway) for once. For my sister's birthday in April I took her to Rams' Head Live to see Matt Nathanson and Jack's Mannequin in concert (great show, but I felt profoundly old in relation to the rest of the crowd). Also in April (busy month!) I took a day trip to Philly with my high school friend Geoff and my longtime partner in crime Boothe to see the TNA Lockdown wrestling pay-per-view. Local sports radio station WNST rented a coach bus for the event, and if there's a better way to travel than by drinking cheap beer and watching old wrestling DVDs while someone else navigates the horrors of I-95, than I don't know it. The actual show was ridiculously entertaining, as ancient wrestlers such as Sting, Mick Foley, Team 3-D, Scott Steiner, Kevin Nash, and Kurt Angle mixed it up with more contemporary stars...and every match was in a steel cage. Can't beat that.
Weddings a go-go. I've joked that it's Wedding Season. I'm in the midst of a four-wedding, six-month stretch that started in April with Jill and Tristan's nuptials in Lancaster, PA. Mikey was my DD, so I partook freely of delicious Lancaster Brewing Co. Strawberry Wheat beer, and of course it was good to see the portion of the Washington College crowd that I rarely hang out with. The following month, I drove down to Chestertown for former WaC classmate Melissa's wedding, and then bummed around campus for a bit since it was reunion weekend. In two weeks (holy crap) Mikey and Julianne tie the knot, and I'm a groomsman or something. Sadly I'll miss the bachelor party while I'm in San Diego. Finally, in late October my sister gets hitched. I'm the man of honor (yes, really), and I guess I'd better figure out a toast.
Miscellaneous. I bought a Nintendo Wii and I've been doing the Wii Fit for three months. I guess I feel a bit healthier, but I'm probably doing something wrong. My lower back is often tight and sore. My sister turned me into a full-fledged cat person with an assist from Gus and Jaq, her absurdly entertaining black-and-white Hemingway cats. I grew a full beard for a few months there, and it wasn't completely terrible, I don't think. I'm still writing for Crunchable at least once per month, I joined Twitter, I'm still slogging along at the old job (though I have just interviewed again at Social Security Admin. and have my fingers crossed), and I finally joined match.com earlier this week after months of dithering (the better to not die alone some day). I guess that's it.
So where do we go from here? Other than the online dating and job applying stuff that's ongoing, I need to find a house to buy in the near future now that I've saved up and there's a tax credit being dangled. No better time than now. I desperately hope to move closer to everyone that I know, which shouldn't be too hard. I also want to write a play for my Zero Hour folks, which I have been putting off for what seems like years.
If you're still reading, a) Thanks for not dropping me from your feed just because of a silly year-long hiatus, and b) you're free. Go have a drink or something.