Thursday, July 27 2006, 12:46 AM

Everyone needs vacation. Even me. One might think that I don't because I don't seem to vacation enough, but I do. That's one reason why this week rules. I'm free from work, free from its stresses, free from dealing with stuff I would rather not deal with.

My vacation actually started later than planned due to said things I would not deal with, but not by much. I was planning on leaving for Cincinnati to visit Jon and Michelle friday night, but I got caught up with some important last minute stuff, and had to postpone the journey until saturday. It was all right though, as it gave me some time to get some things taken care of that would otherwise be postponed.

The trip was a lot of fun. After I got down there saturday evening, Jon and I got totally ripped with a few of his neighbors while sitting on their driveway in lawn chairs. We talked a lot about music of various timeframes, which was really neat since they were a bit older and had some different insights and perspectives. After his neighbors hung it up for the night, Jon and I must have spent a good hour and a half listening to music out in my car. Mostly we were marvelling at Dragonforce, and wondering how people could keep up such an insane pace without falling over dead.

Sunday involved a lot of lounging about, and not a whole lot past that. We rented "The Devils Rejects" and watched that. We had all heard surprisingly good reviews of the movie, and figured it would be a decent movie to rent. It was a pretty good movie as far as scary flicks go, but nothing I would really have any need to see again.

Monday was the coolest day down there by far. After another slow start to the day (requisite for vacations in my book), Jon and I did something we both have wanted to do since he moved down there almost two years ago - check out the Air Force museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton. I visited it with my family many many moons ago, but have no memory of it other than getting a SR-71 poster and a space shuttle book from the gift shop. Well, I'll remember this visit a lot better. I took my camera, and took as many pictures as my batteries would allow. Pictures are in the gallery. We saw all the planes we would have expected there, including the beforementioned SR-71, and a few that we wouldn't expect to see. They had a YF-22 there, which I believe is a prototype for the F-22 Raptor that will come into service sometime within the next few years. They also had a B-2 there, but it may have just been a mock-up or a prototype. I can't imagine the Air Force (or the taxpayers) would be too keen on stuffing a billion-plus dollar plane in a hangar, only to rot away under the constant glare of camera flashes.

After we got back from the museum and had dinner, Jon and I decided to play some pool, and that quickly involved into many games of pool. At least 10. We used up the beer in his fridge during those many games and did a lot of reminiscing about times long past, which was pretty cool. Afterwards, we decided to hop on the internet and look for people we used to know on MySpace (one of two good uses for that piece of crap site). We had a pretty good time doing that, and stayed up until at least 6am hunting people down.

I came back home yesterday, and I've been taking it easy at home while enjoying my lack of work. I head up north tomorrow for our annual cousin's weekend, which should be a lot of fun. It'll be hectic due to the sheer number of people involved, which is one of the reasons I'm only shooting for a three day weekend. Being subjected to lots of people wears on me rather quickly, especially when there is chatter waking me up long before I want to every morning. Oh well, it'll still be a lot of fun.

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Sunday, March 05 2006, 11:41 PM

I suppose I'm well overdue for a post, considering that it's been almost a month. I would say that I haven't been up to much, which was my standard M.O. for a while, but I don't think that's been the case lately.

First off, my eye still sucks. I had an appointment with the cataract specialist a week or so ago. He didn't tell me much I hadn't yet heard, but the ball is rolling now. I have a mild cataract in my right eye, which doesn't sound that bad, but it will continue to get worse as time progresses. As a result, I'm going to have it removed. This will likely be some time in May, but the time isn't set yet.

I learned some more details about the aftermath of the procedure as well. Once my natural lens has been removed and replaced with an artificial lens, I will lose the ability to focus up close with my right eye, so I'll need to wear reading glasses in order for my right eye to be useful for any kind of detailed vision. I'm just hoping that removing the cataract will help restore some of the clarity I had before, even if there are floaters. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

I've also been on the road a bit over the past month. A couple weekends back, I went down to Indianapolis with the crew to visit Andre and celebrate his engagement. Congrats big man! As always, his party was a blast, with much drunken merryment being had by all.

This weekend we all met up down in Cincinnati for Jon's birthday. It was also a great time. We hit up Skyline chili and had some cheese-laden dirty eats. After that, the 5 guys (Jon, Andre, Chris, Darin, and myself) reverted back to the 5th grade and played some street football. It was a ton of fun, even if it highlighted how out of shape we all are. After we caught our breath, we headed down to the Hofbrauhaus in Newport, Kentucky. The beer was flowing, and we had a great time. We will definitely have to go back there again. After our beer, we headed over to the Rock Bottom brewery and had some delicious food and drink. I think it was all too much for me really, and I ended up passing out on Jon's couch by midnight or so, while everyone else was playing pictionary and other board games. The rest of the crew rousted early... far too early for my liking, but there wasn't much I could do. Oh well I guess.

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Tuesday, June 21 2005, 1:39 PM

I had another eye exam this morning with Dr. Saxe, and he says he sees good improvement, although I don't really see much difference. My eyesight is up to 20/25 in the right eye, but I think that's kind of misleading. With my left eye I'm able to pick off the 20/20 line at a glance, but I have to strain for seconds at a time to see the lines with my right eye. The leakage has slowed, and he says most of the swelling inside my eye has gone. I guess that's good news, even though I don't really see it with my own eye.

I had a good time this weekend down with Jon and Michelle in Cincy. We caught a Reds game saturday night and watched the new Batman movie on sunday. Batman gets two thumbs up from all three of us. The plot and action were all great, and it was kinda neat because you didn't have a clear idea of who the bad guy really was until the very end. There were a few 'bad' guys throughout the movie, but arch-enemy super villan type wasn't revealed until the end. I plan on seeing it again soon. Very few movies get that from me.

I've got a few pictures from the trip up in the gallery, along with some others that I hadn't posted yet. It seems that I took more pictures of their cats than anything else. What can I say, they were cute!

cincinnati movies reviews righteye roadtrips

Saturday, June 18 2005, 3:05 AM

Yep, I'm posting from Cincinnati tonight. I'm down here visiting Jon and Michelle, and pilfering one of their neighbor's wireless connection. That's what they get for leaving it open! For those that are curious, I'm in this general area. This area is actually a bit more scenic than the rest of Ohio. The last 30 miles or so of the highway portion of the drive have hills and woods and stuff, whereas the first portion of the drive has nothing but effing Corn Fields. At least I didn't smell that pig farm that I've noticed before on previous trips through Ohio on I-75. That stench makes rotten eggs seem downright fragrant.

This week has been a good one for me. The project load at work was lighter, which is a good thing. The project was kinda delayed on the other end, not mine. I was kinda mad though, I was told to be ready for the monday launch, and when I emailed the other folks to find out what the status was, they were like "oh yah, we'll release sometime in the next three weeks." And I worked the whole weekend before trying to polish things up for monday. Grrrr.

I also hung out with Megan a few times this week. We hit up the bar, watched some movies, and played guitars together. I don't care what she says, her voice is great! I have an admiration for anyone who can play and sing at the same time, because I can't. I can shout over choruses, but that's about it. She did her best to distract me while I was playing too, and well, she was successful! I guess I need my full concentration when I play. Bad musical abominations happen when I lose focus. I guess they're only slightly worse than my normal musical abominations though.

cincinnati guitar projects ramblings roadtrips work

Sunday, March 13 2005, 8:40 PM

There's really only one word to describe my current state - tired. I'm on another midnight rotation, and I've worked over 70 hours in the past week. We're doing things a bit differently this time - instead of the two weeks of 12am-8am, we're doing one of 8pm-4am then one of 12am-8am. Well, Greg (roommate/coworker) was on his second week of midnights when I started my 8pm-4am's, and he was sick as a dog for the first two days of that, so I just sent him home both days. He had a fever of around 103°F, so he had no business being at work. I found other reasons over the next few days to be at work far longer than I wanted to be, and it's just sucked the life out of me..... and I've got another week to go. :-(

Last weekend was cool though - I caught a ride with Darin and Lisa to visit with Jon and Michelle at their new house near Cincinnati. Andre braved his cat allergies and made the trip as well. Jon and Michelle have quite the house down there - it just goes to show that the dollar goes a lot farther once you get out of southeast Michigan. We went to downtown Cinci and walked around for a while, just kinda wandering around before we went out for Jon's birthday dinner. The women insisted that we go into places like Tiffany's, but then got all offended when we wanted to go into the Hustler store we stumbled across... oh well. That place looked shady anyways. We also got to enjoy some Skyline Chili - a gift that keeps on giving... Giving lower intestinal problems that is. It was tasty, but wow. More cheese than any human should eat! All in all I had a great time, dispite the gastrointestinal discomfort.

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