Just Say Uncle!
Hi, so like, I'm sitting here typing away and guess who's sitting on my left. Yep, you guessed it, it's my Uncle Kevin Cecil. My mom's brother in-law (married my mum's sister, my Aunt Mary) , do you capitalize the "u" in Uncle or the "a" in Aunt? Well anyway, so he's up here in MN for some sort of business trip and he decided to drop by the ole Steinbarger lodge for a visit and a restaurant jaunt. (side note- we were talking about the personalities of our "kids" -from parents perspective and all, and my mom was talking about combining the three of us -my two brothers and myself, and I was like, "Yeah, but that'd be like combining matter and anti-matter" ... wow, talk about a room full of blank faces. lol, tough crowd tough crowd.) SO mean while, yeah my uncle is here visiting and we just got back from a lovely meal at Timberlodge Steakhouse, which was good, and now we're at that pleasant after meal small talk stage. Actually, he's got a daughter who's going to be a senior in highschool this fall, and she's actually already visited Purdue, so thad be pretty cool, cause my cuz is a cool gal. Ironically her name is Angela. So back to my uncle, he's like 40 something-ish and has like a slightly receding hairline that's got a smattering of gray (or is it grey?) in some sort of polo shirt (style, not brand) that's dark navy blue predominantly but with green and purple stripes and white blue stripes, they're multi-coloured stripe groups. He's got a watch on his left hand and some sort of slacks. Yeah, okay that's enough of that. Mostly I'm just doing this, in case he aks me what I'm doing 'cause it'll hopefully weird him out.
Right, well I'm afraid I've been re-nigging on keeping updated with my posts yet this time I'm at a curious place. On the one hand I naturally have had a whole bunch of things to write about as time has passed by, yet on the other hand it's been so long for some of my things to chat about that I've kinda forgotten about them. So let's see here ...
Hmm, okay well I think I'll start with the most recent stuff and work my way backward. Okay, so today's Tuesday and yesterday was Monday which was Memorial Day. So uhm, I've been playing tennis with the fam, which is nice, especially since I've now beaten both of my parents (w00t). Of course I worked at Wal-Mart on Monday, quite an interesting day all in all. Which naturally brings things to Sunday. Wow and Whoa! Sunday was quite the day by all accounts. Okay, so first I somehow managed to drag my sorry corpse out of bed in time to get to church at 9:00am because apparently my church now has this like bible study slash sunday school thing for college peoples. So I dutifully donned a navy blue hoodie and cargo pants (I said it was early!) and set out to look into this thing. So I get there, and 'cause it's a holiday weekend I guess attendance was really down, but there was still some people, and they seemed like normal college folk. There was one other person where it was her first time as well, so we gave introductions of ourselves, she's had a year at some college I don't really know that well, but is I think going to the U of MN next year. All in all , good stuff. So then we get back home after church and go play tennis. We get back and as a treat my mom makes smoothies! Yum! They were really good, and of two flavors. The first was a bannana strawberry smoothie and the other a peach bananna and my mom decided chocolate syrup was appropriate (always a good call). So, at this point it's like 4pm and I'm planning on going to church in the evening at 6:30pm, so I wanna get cleaned up (not that beating my parents really worked up that much of a sweat, lol). I go upstairs and then it hits me. Woofta! Okay, yeah, so like my stomach is just absolutely churning away and now I'm like, I really need to lay down. So I go to my room and lay down, and I just absolutely feel like trash. SO at that point I'm really not feeling up to church or frankly much of anything, like it was bad. We're talking stomach cramps, pain, nausea the works. So I'm thinking to myself, "Gee, those smoothies odviously didn't agree with me, but how long could it possibly take to digest this crap and be done with it?". Oh how pitifully wrong I was. So about an hour and a half later, I'm overcome by the nausea, of course by this point I'm so miserable I didn't even mind violently throwing up like 4 to 5 times. Yeah, it was pretty fantastic. So after that I go and take a shower and actually felt good enough to go to church, so I did. So here's the deal. I learned from my mom that no one else had issues, and by process of elimination, we figured out that it was the strawberries to blame.
I am dangerously allergic to strawberries.
I cannot begin to express how much this totally blows, because I really really like the flavor, but I guess I'm like, very seriously hypoallergenic to them. This was actually the second time that I've reacted to strawberries, which makes sense since it's only the second time I've eaten actual strawberries rather than something you know, artificially flavored. The first time was at a friends house and his mom brought us a dish of strawberries, so feeling adventurous I eat one, and BAM! the instant I swallow I'm hit with a pretty heavy wave of dizzyness, I mean, we're talking instantaneous here. So, i'm like "Whoa, that was odd" so, natuarally I go ahead and do it again two more times with the same result. Well, after three waves of seriously disorienting dizzyness I decide to stop screwing around with the strawberries. Fast foward to now. Apparently nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, and yes dizzyness are all related symptoms of an anaphalytic reaction. They all have to do with alterations to blood pressure, which can cause the prior mentioned symptoms or things like swelling or constricting. Think of how when someone is allergic to peanuts and is eats one how their throat swells up and they die. My allergy to strawberries is in the same category, but on level lower in intensity. There's three levels. Anaphalytic allergic reaction, the more serious class known as anaphalaxis which can lead into anaphalytic shock which requires immediate medical attention or you can die in like 15 minutes. So, wheeeeeeeee!! Oh, and the best part is that everytime you're exposed each reaction gets worse. So, first it was dizzy, then hardcore rejection and uhh .. purging of the body. I'm really looking to avoid finding out what happens the third time round.
Ahh, so that was Sunday. So, at the happy Wal-Mart land I can really only think of two things to chat about and both involving women. Okay so the first one was at the beggining of the week and uhh ... weird.
So i'm like operating the fastlane which is Wal-Marts self checkout thing and it's semi-early in the morning so there's no one there. So I'm just like, walking around doing a whole lot of nothing. This is when I notice an elderly lady sitting in one of our chairs by the front entrance. I continue to mosy about, but I guess she was waiting for someone or something 'cause she was still there. So I throw her a smile, you know, just a real casual hello kind of smile. For guys I do the nod and for girls or old people I'll give a smile. And this gal in particular was like, oh I dunno, 70's at the very least, possibly older. You may wonder where this is all going. So I smile, and what does she do? Oh no, there is no way you could possibly guess, but she uhm, sticks her tongue out, sorta, in that her tongue was extended. But uh, not in the "blahh, you can't catch me" way, no it was uh ... sexual .. so needless to say that was by far one of the most horrifying moments of my life, I spun around faster than you could say "God strike this poor boy dead before anything worse happens" and proceeded to attempt to laugh off the sudden fit of the shakes that was overcoming me. I didn't turn around for a good long time, so I knew she was gone. Ugh ..... uhm so yes, that was quite the moment. I still shudder thinking about it.
Well, the next experience was dramatically different. This time it was when a friend of mine that used to work here came by to buy something and we had this little mini-reunion and she stayed and talked with me for a little while. It was so awesome to see her again (her name's Tiffany), like she was one of the few people that I sometimes thought about at Purdue. And oh my gosh, this girl is so amazingly gorgeous, I mean, she's seriously beautifull. Of course she has a boyfriend (duh, they always do) and they've been together for like some number of years and are very serious, like they know each other's families and so forth. So, uhm that really galls me. And it wouldn't be so bad, but we are good friends, and while I don't know a whole lot about her boyfriend, what I do know doesn't contribute well to a positive disposition in his regard. Compound that with how stunning Tiff is, and that we really get along, that she's one of the handfull of girls that thinks I'm attractive and not just a cute little boy and that she's part Egyptian and well you just have a recipe for me being quite disgruntled. Lol, *sigh* , but, be all that as it may, she really does like her boyfriend and I'd have to say judging from the longevity of their relationship that he genuinely likes her as well, so it really isn't my place, nor is she mine to be indignant about. Blah, well I'm fine now, or as fine as such a crazy person as myself can ever be, but it took some time. Meh.
Right, well I've been reading you other peoples journals, and I've got a few things pertaining to all that.
Okay, so RJ, yeah, I've been unable to download your song yet, but it's prbly just my crappy computer. Star Wars, I can't believe I missed that it was from the CCG, so I went back and got out my cards, and besides re-awakening my enjoyment for the game I think it's either Mon-Motha or Leia, I'm not sure cause I don't have those cards/couldn't find them, I'm actually not sure on the spelling of Mon-Motha either, but oh well. Don't kill the cat, there'd be paperwork. If you're done with both Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow of the Giant, and caught up with Star Wars, you should look into Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, or the Chronicles of Narnia books... you can't possibly have read all those could you? ...
To Mike Snow, if I recall correctly your thinking about a road trip to Canada and possibly the northern shore of lake superior right? Well I doubt I'll be available, but if you happen to swing by MN on your way to Canada you should stop by or something.
Erin!! Hey that's really interesting about your duality between school and home. I've experienced the exact same thing except that mine is flip flopped, lol. I was a lot more reclusive and all about school at home, but at college I'm anything but. At home I had a few friends, at school I can't go just about anywhere without seeing someone I know, or even saying "Hi" to friends as we pass. Interesting stuff. I totally applaud your wanting to get more politically involved next year! And I can totally relate to what you were saying about it being so conservative at Purdue. I mean, I'm a Minnesota boy, and we went blue even when Bush won undisputed. So like, I come to Purdue and everyone is conservative, and I just find it all so politically stagnant. Lol, like here's the deal. I'm a fairly conservative guy, that could be blindly lumped in with the "religious right" group. So, while at highschool as I was in all these nerd honors classes there was a lot of really intelligent, really liberal people. The funny thing was, for the longest time they all assumed that I was liberal too. I guess it's because I wasn't an idiot walking around with a sign in my hands and descrying them all as heathen. I dunno, but anyway (lol) I would consider myself pretty conservative. I am of the view that abortion is not an appropriate action to take, and I don't think that the whole homosexuality thing is just another option, I don't think prostitution is acceptable (though I don't think our current arrangement is ideal by any stretch of the imagination), and social security just annoys me, conversely though I'm undecided on whether marijuana is actually bad, I don't have a problem with some sort of welfare or social program and the death penalty just makes me cringe. Well, that was a tangent ... So, we would have a whole lot of high quality political debates or talks or disscussions, dissagreements, whatever you wanna call it. But, like I was friends with these people, so it wasn't like we were pissed at each other, we just had different views. I can't say how much I miss that at Purdue. Like, one of the things that I really dispise is when people Liberal or Conservative just rant, and I've experienced both, but when everyone agrees it's sometimes difficult for it not to devolve into that. Actually, some of my most respected friends are very liberal and we had some great reasoned debates. Blah, I'm waxing poetic here. But anyway Erin, if you'd ever like to debate or have some intelligent conversation (but making informed and clever snide remarks/complaints don't count) I'd be happy to have it out. ;)
Hmm, I think I'll use comments on you people's actual livejournals too, there's really no guarantee anyone reads this madness of mine anyway, lol.
Uhm, it's getting late-ish, and I have work tommorow. SO, .. good night :)
~Scott (i love that squiggly tilda!)
Right, well I'm afraid I've been re-nigging on keeping updated with my posts yet this time I'm at a curious place. On the one hand I naturally have had a whole bunch of things to write about as time has passed by, yet on the other hand it's been so long for some of my things to chat about that I've kinda forgotten about them. So let's see here ...
Hmm, okay well I think I'll start with the most recent stuff and work my way backward. Okay, so today's Tuesday and yesterday was Monday which was Memorial Day. So uhm, I've been playing tennis with the fam, which is nice, especially since I've now beaten both of my parents (w00t). Of course I worked at Wal-Mart on Monday, quite an interesting day all in all. Which naturally brings things to Sunday. Wow and Whoa! Sunday was quite the day by all accounts. Okay, so first I somehow managed to drag my sorry corpse out of bed in time to get to church at 9:00am because apparently my church now has this like bible study slash sunday school thing for college peoples. So I dutifully donned a navy blue hoodie and cargo pants (I said it was early!) and set out to look into this thing. So I get there, and 'cause it's a holiday weekend I guess attendance was really down, but there was still some people, and they seemed like normal college folk. There was one other person where it was her first time as well, so we gave introductions of ourselves, she's had a year at some college I don't really know that well, but is I think going to the U of MN next year. All in all , good stuff. So then we get back home after church and go play tennis. We get back and as a treat my mom makes smoothies! Yum! They were really good, and of two flavors. The first was a bannana strawberry smoothie and the other a peach bananna and my mom decided chocolate syrup was appropriate (always a good call). So, at this point it's like 4pm and I'm planning on going to church in the evening at 6:30pm, so I wanna get cleaned up (not that beating my parents really worked up that much of a sweat, lol). I go upstairs and then it hits me. Woofta! Okay, yeah, so like my stomach is just absolutely churning away and now I'm like, I really need to lay down. So I go to my room and lay down, and I just absolutely feel like trash. SO at that point I'm really not feeling up to church or frankly much of anything, like it was bad. We're talking stomach cramps, pain, nausea the works. So I'm thinking to myself, "Gee, those smoothies odviously didn't agree with me, but how long could it possibly take to digest this crap and be done with it?". Oh how pitifully wrong I was. So about an hour and a half later, I'm overcome by the nausea, of course by this point I'm so miserable I didn't even mind violently throwing up like 4 to 5 times. Yeah, it was pretty fantastic. So after that I go and take a shower and actually felt good enough to go to church, so I did. So here's the deal. I learned from my mom that no one else had issues, and by process of elimination, we figured out that it was the strawberries to blame.
I am dangerously allergic to strawberries.
I cannot begin to express how much this totally blows, because I really really like the flavor, but I guess I'm like, very seriously hypoallergenic to them. This was actually the second time that I've reacted to strawberries, which makes sense since it's only the second time I've eaten actual strawberries rather than something you know, artificially flavored. The first time was at a friends house and his mom brought us a dish of strawberries, so feeling adventurous I eat one, and BAM! the instant I swallow I'm hit with a pretty heavy wave of dizzyness, I mean, we're talking instantaneous here. So, i'm like "Whoa, that was odd" so, natuarally I go ahead and do it again two more times with the same result. Well, after three waves of seriously disorienting dizzyness I decide to stop screwing around with the strawberries. Fast foward to now. Apparently nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, and yes dizzyness are all related symptoms of an anaphalytic reaction. They all have to do with alterations to blood pressure, which can cause the prior mentioned symptoms or things like swelling or constricting. Think of how when someone is allergic to peanuts and is eats one how their throat swells up and they die. My allergy to strawberries is in the same category, but on level lower in intensity. There's three levels. Anaphalytic allergic reaction, the more serious class known as anaphalaxis which can lead into anaphalytic shock which requires immediate medical attention or you can die in like 15 minutes. So, wheeeeeeeee!! Oh, and the best part is that everytime you're exposed each reaction gets worse. So, first it was dizzy, then hardcore rejection and uhh .. purging of the body. I'm really looking to avoid finding out what happens the third time round.
Ahh, so that was Sunday. So, at the happy Wal-Mart land I can really only think of two things to chat about and both involving women. Okay so the first one was at the beggining of the week and uhh ... weird.
So i'm like operating the fastlane which is Wal-Marts self checkout thing and it's semi-early in the morning so there's no one there. So I'm just like, walking around doing a whole lot of nothing. This is when I notice an elderly lady sitting in one of our chairs by the front entrance. I continue to mosy about, but I guess she was waiting for someone or something 'cause she was still there. So I throw her a smile, you know, just a real casual hello kind of smile. For guys I do the nod and for girls or old people I'll give a smile. And this gal in particular was like, oh I dunno, 70's at the very least, possibly older. You may wonder where this is all going. So I smile, and what does she do? Oh no, there is no way you could possibly guess, but she uhm, sticks her tongue out, sorta, in that her tongue was extended. But uh, not in the "blahh, you can't catch me" way, no it was uh ... sexual .. so needless to say that was by far one of the most horrifying moments of my life, I spun around faster than you could say "God strike this poor boy dead before anything worse happens" and proceeded to attempt to laugh off the sudden fit of the shakes that was overcoming me. I didn't turn around for a good long time, so I knew she was gone. Ugh ..... uhm so yes, that was quite the moment. I still shudder thinking about it.
Well, the next experience was dramatically different. This time it was when a friend of mine that used to work here came by to buy something and we had this little mini-reunion and she stayed and talked with me for a little while. It was so awesome to see her again (her name's Tiffany), like she was one of the few people that I sometimes thought about at Purdue. And oh my gosh, this girl is so amazingly gorgeous, I mean, she's seriously beautifull. Of course she has a boyfriend (duh, they always do) and they've been together for like some number of years and are very serious, like they know each other's families and so forth. So, uhm that really galls me. And it wouldn't be so bad, but we are good friends, and while I don't know a whole lot about her boyfriend, what I do know doesn't contribute well to a positive disposition in his regard. Compound that with how stunning Tiff is, and that we really get along, that she's one of the handfull of girls that thinks I'm attractive and not just a cute little boy and that she's part Egyptian and well you just have a recipe for me being quite disgruntled. Lol, *sigh* , but, be all that as it may, she really does like her boyfriend and I'd have to say judging from the longevity of their relationship that he genuinely likes her as well, so it really isn't my place, nor is she mine to be indignant about. Blah, well I'm fine now, or as fine as such a crazy person as myself can ever be, but it took some time. Meh.
Right, well I've been reading you other peoples journals, and I've got a few things pertaining to all that.
Okay, so RJ, yeah, I've been unable to download your song yet, but it's prbly just my crappy computer. Star Wars, I can't believe I missed that it was from the CCG, so I went back and got out my cards, and besides re-awakening my enjoyment for the game I think it's either Mon-Motha or Leia, I'm not sure cause I don't have those cards/couldn't find them, I'm actually not sure on the spelling of Mon-Motha either, but oh well. Don't kill the cat, there'd be paperwork. If you're done with both Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow of the Giant, and caught up with Star Wars, you should look into Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, or the Chronicles of Narnia books... you can't possibly have read all those could you? ...
To Mike Snow, if I recall correctly your thinking about a road trip to Canada and possibly the northern shore of lake superior right? Well I doubt I'll be available, but if you happen to swing by MN on your way to Canada you should stop by or something.
Erin!! Hey that's really interesting about your duality between school and home. I've experienced the exact same thing except that mine is flip flopped, lol. I was a lot more reclusive and all about school at home, but at college I'm anything but. At home I had a few friends, at school I can't go just about anywhere without seeing someone I know, or even saying "Hi" to friends as we pass. Interesting stuff. I totally applaud your wanting to get more politically involved next year! And I can totally relate to what you were saying about it being so conservative at Purdue. I mean, I'm a Minnesota boy, and we went blue even when Bush won undisputed. So like, I come to Purdue and everyone is conservative, and I just find it all so politically stagnant. Lol, like here's the deal. I'm a fairly conservative guy, that could be blindly lumped in with the "religious right" group. So, while at highschool as I was in all these nerd honors classes there was a lot of really intelligent, really liberal people. The funny thing was, for the longest time they all assumed that I was liberal too. I guess it's because I wasn't an idiot walking around with a sign in my hands and descrying them all as heathen. I dunno, but anyway (lol) I would consider myself pretty conservative. I am of the view that abortion is not an appropriate action to take, and I don't think that the whole homosexuality thing is just another option, I don't think prostitution is acceptable (though I don't think our current arrangement is ideal by any stretch of the imagination), and social security just annoys me, conversely though I'm undecided on whether marijuana is actually bad, I don't have a problem with some sort of welfare or social program and the death penalty just makes me cringe. Well, that was a tangent ... So, we would have a whole lot of high quality political debates or talks or disscussions, dissagreements, whatever you wanna call it. But, like I was friends with these people, so it wasn't like we were pissed at each other, we just had different views. I can't say how much I miss that at Purdue. Like, one of the things that I really dispise is when people Liberal or Conservative just rant, and I've experienced both, but when everyone agrees it's sometimes difficult for it not to devolve into that. Actually, some of my most respected friends are very liberal and we had some great reasoned debates. Blah, I'm waxing poetic here. But anyway Erin, if you'd ever like to debate or have some intelligent conversation (but making informed and clever snide remarks/complaints don't count) I'd be happy to have it out. ;)
Hmm, I think I'll use comments on you people's actual livejournals too, there's really no guarantee anyone reads this madness of mine anyway, lol.
Uhm, it's getting late-ish, and I have work tommorow. SO, .. good night :)
~Scott (i love that squiggly tilda!)