"Hello, Sam."
ILSA
Hello, Sam.
SAM
Hello Ms. Ilsa. I never expected to see you again.
ILSA
...Been a long time.
SAM
Yes ma'am... a lot o' water under the bridge.
-Casablanca (1943)
Well, it HAS been a long time - but I worked up some spare time, and I'm here to post.
*scratches head and stares blankly at the monitor*
Uhh... well, you'll notice that I've changed my theme again. Kinda plain, but I like it. You'll also notice, I made myself a new avatar... it depicts the ONE and ONLY Humphrey Bogart, who played Rick Blaine in the ONE and ONLY "Casablanca," which is one of my all time favorite movies. Humphrey Bogart has become one of my favorite actors... of all... time... gotta love his sense of style *cough* fedora *cough* and all of the Bogie movies I've seen so far have been awesome. I even saw one where his character died - it was still awesome. I won't say which it is, though.
So, I got some new Indy gear, got my new bullwhip, and Lori and Alden have gone out and broken up since my last post. "A lot of water under the bridge" indeed. It makes me feel extremely grateful for the amount of time I've been granted with her as somebody who was "a little more than a friend." Also taking place in the past few months - besides falling in love with Humphrey Bogart, was Halloween! Halloween was alright. I was Lori's brother, Mark. I borrowed his letterman jacket and a La Habra High School baseball cap. What's funny is that the day we celebrated Halloween at school, we had a game against La Habra! So I was walking around with the "enemy's" letterman jacket and hat on, and our varsity football team REALLY didn't like that. I got a couple threats, so I painted on a fake black eye as an "excuse" and for a bit of jump-insurance. It worked well, and I came out unscathed. I got to see a little of the football game, too... I watched through a fence, from a distance. All I could see was that it was the 3rd quarter, and that nobody was moving... lol - must have been a time out? I did have to leave though, as I needed to walk to Jack-in-the-Box to get dinner with my sister, then go home. Anyway, the results of the game:
La Habra High School: 36
Fullerton Union High School: 7
Go Highlanders! (Just don't tell any of my fellow Indians that I said that... =P )
In other news: the Cross Country season has finally, finally (!) ended. Yesterday was League Finals, and I didn't do very well. Apparently a lot of people "PR'ed" (PR = Personal Record) but unfortunately, I didn't. My PR is 24:25. The closest I've come to beating that was on 10/14, our race at... La Habra! Strange, huh? My time there was an AGONIZING 24:26. AAAGH!!! Can you believe it? What makes it worse is that I was sick, so I had to walk a little bit, on account of difficulty breathing. Usually I could run the whole 3 miles. That's so evil. And if I'd started sprinting 3 seconds earlier for the last 100 meters, I'd have beaten my record. Evil. Aw, well... I'm looking forward to the Track and Field season - where hopefully I will be participating in the 100, 200, and 400 (4x4 relay) meter sprint events. If I'm good enough, I'll make varsity! I can only pray.
Next - (I want a good post to make up for the 2 months, and since I'm full of caffeine, I'll be up all friggin' night anyway...)
I went to an event at UCI (University of California, [in] Irvine) called the "Medjugorje Peace Conference" (pronounced MEH-juh-gory - and that's where Mary lived, by the way). Lots of priests from all over the world attend, as well as sisters and brothers, deacons and sometimes bishops. I think that even the Pope has been to one. Anyway, this year they discussed "renewing sanctity in the family." It was a huge building, so you could go in and listen to a speaker/singer/mass/adoration/worship/praise, or go get food, or go to the bookstore to buy books, CDs, statues, Rosaries, and other such religious items. Anyway, I was there Saturday, from 8am to about 10pm, then Sunday from 10am to about 4pm. I went with Lori, and her friend Christina and her family, so I had a lot of fun spending time with Lori, and getting to know Christina better. I bought an amazingly beautiful new crucifix necklace, about 2" tall, made of gold and silver, with some Latin on the front and back of a small seal which is in the intersecting part of the cross, behind Jesus' head. The necklace is called the "Medal of St. Benedict," and supposedly it wards off evil... at least that's what the Latin says. Saturday we didn't do much ... we ate, we napped in the staff lounge (we had special badges, to do backstage stuff), occasionally listened to a speaker, and went to mass. Before leaving, we went to Adoration, which was ALSO a healing mass - VERY awesome. I love adoration - it's so powerful, and so humbling... it was so cold, poor Lori was freezing, so I took off my sweatshirt, and even though she said she didn't want it, I gave it to her. So we sat on the floor in the big auditorium, near the doorway, and worshipped together (which I also love doing - adoration with somebody special), then after the Blessed Sacrament left, so did we, and I got my crucifix blessed by a Croatian priest, who only spoke a little English, so the blessing was in Croatian, and therefore, I didn't understand it. But it was still cool, because priests from Croatia don't wear the standard black shirt with white priest-collar and black pants, they wear these robes, that look like Jedi robes! It's so cool! THEN on Sunday, mostly all day, Lori, Christina, and I, were security guards for a famous Catholic singer named Michael O'brien. We worked together with UCI Security guards to keep crazed fans back during an autograph session. Afterwards, we got autographs, and that was mostly the whole day... lots of standing around. We got picked up by Lori's brother Mark, and then we went home, back to church just in time for the LIFE TEEN mass! Yeah!! Following the mass was a Life Night, which was also very good. Rudy made an appearance as... Sgt. Michael Arch Angel (yes, his name was 2 words, not just "archangel"). He did a very good acting job, and his military uniform looked pretty authentic, and it had cool cross pins and stuff on it. He was great - great little lecture, good message.
Nice job, Rudy!!
And... I think that's all I have to say... so, until next time...
"If that plane leaves the ground and you're not on it, you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life..." -Humphrey Bogart, (you guessed it...) Casablanca