I just woke up laughing from a dream I was having. I’m not sure if I’ve ever done that before, but it is an unusual experience. I wish I could remember more of the dream, something about standing in an open field, three old men arguing over some misunderstanding about a Christmas tradition, calamity ensues etc., etc. Don’t worry, it doesn’t sound funny to me anymore either.

I miss my childhood version of Christmas. We used to have my Grandmother, my parents, four sets of Aunts and Uncles, and ten cousins, all in one house together for the holidays. We all used to spend up to a week together, and it never occurred to anyone that not being available for Christmas was an option. There doesn’t seem to be too many families built like that anymore. Now, I get a few days off at most and my wife spends every other Christmas working at the hospital. My daughter won’t even see another child on Christmas eve or Christmas, which is very sad to me. On a brighter note, she’s very excited, and we’re excited for her, and that’s a good feeling.

Christmas trivia: at 6:17 a.m. est. on Christmas day, there are 25,561 players logged in to Full Tilt Poker playing for money.

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Two quick things I love about Virginia weather:

1) Consistency. Yesterday, December 15th mind you, it was sixty five degrees and sunny. This morning when I wake up? Thirty seven and raining. The latter of course being the normal winter weather for Va., raining and just warm enough not to snow.

2) The sense of excitement. The mere mention of flurries in this city sends people flocking to the grocery stores, all desperate to get their hands on every loaf of bread and gallon of milk within city limits. I have lived here for thirty three years and I’ve never been snowed in for longer than two days at the absolute most, and that was mainly just because we didn’t have anywhere to go. Yet every year people attack the bread aisle as if this might be the last chance they’ll get before spring thaw. How many sandwiches can one family make in forty eight hours?

Anyway, I need to move somewhere with a chance at a white Christmas.

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A blank page can be intimidating. As I stare at one now, it’s hard for me to think of any important/interesting/relevant thing to say. I should have at least a few things to talk about, since I haven’t posted anything in roughly the past six* years, and in fact I do. The problem for me, as usual, is getting started.

For one thing, as stated above, it’s been a while. As I look at this site for the first time in years, it’s strange to see that some people have joined, started, and stopped posting altogether since I last contributed. Also strange is the fact that I only vaguely recognize my previous posts as I read them now, and this feeling pretty much sums up why I wanted to start back up. These years passed almost without me noticing, and I want something to help me remember. A verbal scrapbook of sorts. So here I go again, attempt #3**. Time to hit publish and give myself another blank page.

I also just realized that I have now known Tripp for more than twenty years, which is bizarre.

*Yes, it appears that I posted twice in 2004, but since I don’t remember them and apparently all I did back then was post about not having time to post, in my mind those don’t count.

**Or as I like to think of it, attempt #2.

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But i picked pretty much the worst month possible to start posting again. This past month has left me drained in ways that I am curently too drained to document, so instead I will document my overwhelming hatred for my job and how much having to close eleven out of thirteen nights as a restaurant manager sucks when it basically keeps you from seeing your wife and daughter at all for almost that entire stretch of time. My little girl is growing up too fast, and sometimes I feel like I’m missing most of it.

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or:

Does anyone know where I can find the Paris Hilton sex tape?

Well, here I am, back to posting after almost a year and a half. I left shortly after the birth of my daughter, and have been busy watching her grow up ever since. It’s amazing how transfixing that can be.

I know that this is supposed to be a long, catching up type of a post, but it just isn’t going to work out that way. For one thing, it’s 3 in the morning, and i just got home from work. For another thing, I have to be back at work at 9:30 in the morning. So I need to go to sleep. In a day or two, I promise to tell you all about my daughter, our new puppy, and about how I have made over $1200 in the past couple months playing poker. Until then, goodnight.

P.S. I know this has been discussed over and over already, but I think it’s hilarious that each of the last five searches done from this site revolve around Paris Hilton and her sex tape.

P.P.S. Oh, and that Tripp’s Governor is the guy from Kindergarten Cop.

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It’s been two and a half weeks since August 31st, the date that suddenly everything in this world now seems to be revolving around. To say that your life changes when you have a child is so much of an undersatement that it reminds me that we don’t have enough words in our language to describe things of this nature. Or maybe we do have enough words, they’re just not the right ones. Either way, I can’t tell you how we feel right now, because there isn’t a mechanism capable of allowing me to do so. Instead, I’ll just stick to the facts.

Her name is Julia Allison Fearnow, and she was born at 1:31 am. She was 7 pounds, 15 1/2 ounces. She was twenty inches long. I’ll have some pictures up just as soon as I can find somewhere to store them. I lost my website when I moved, very tiresome.

Also, Tripp called shortly after starting to read my post, and it was good to get back in touch. I have noticed already the congratulatory posts from Matt and Carter, so thank you very much. Now for the hard part.

Ray:

I just wanted you to know that our hearts go out to you and your wife. I know we’ve never met, and I know that the last thing I wanted when I was going through this was strangers trying to make me feel better, but I just wanted to say that we are truly sorry. My wife and I read your post together, and by the time we finished, we were both in tears. Again, words fail, but we wish you the best.

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I have, over the last few weeks, collected somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty or so posts that I would be able to start putting in as soon as I had the chance. But before I get to that, I would like to say that yes, I know this site is based on people posting regularly and yes, I absolutely have been falling way short of ant type of respectable mark, and if you want to take me off, feel free, you have my permission. Thanks for the space, no hard feelings. If not, I have many things I’d still like to say.

What I would like to comment on is the “I hate it when my friends dissappear on me” quote that you like to throw around every so often.

The comment that I would like to make is that it’s bullshit.

I know you’ve been busy getting school straightened out and everything, and oyu don’t have a cell phone, and I don’t blame you for not calling me yet. Hell I’m more than used to it. But you have to realize that for me at least, sometimes there will be things that might stop me from posting from time to time, not for as long as in the recent months, but for longer than maybe some of the others. Like I said before, if you want to take me off, do so.

I just want to clear up my disappearing act for you.

Since sometime around my last post, as you know, Melissa and I were very close to having a baby. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever experienced, and it has monopolized all of my time.

P.S. I know you don’t have a cell phone, and I know you called my parents house once, but the biggest event in my life happens and you can’t see your way clear to actually taking the time to get through to me. Besides the fact that I get the strong impression that the only reason you called at all was to ask why I wasn’t posting, not to ask about the birth of my child. Which one of us dissappeared?

On top of that, I have been to no less than two funerals in the month since I posted and maybe it’s just me, but I have trouble finding the desire to put things like up, not to mention the fact that it’s been very emotionally draining in the first place. Both people were in their twenties and both were either family or close friends. I just couldn’t bring myself to post about those events, it just seemed too trivial.

Plus, there’s work. I had the week off. When the baby was born. (details in my next post, if there is one) Should I have at least dropped a small post in there to celebrate and keep people infromed? Absolutely. At the same time, I heard some horrible news about someone who might occasionally read my posts, and I thought that if I posted then, it might make them feel worse, so I decided to wait. I’ve been in his situation, even a little worse maybe, and I know that at the time it happened to me, I sure as hell wasn’t in the mood for anyone else’s good news. So I didn’t post.

After my vacation week, which you can say what you want, but no one does anything but spend time with thier new child the week it’s born, I had seven closing shifts in a row, after which I came straight home to help Melissa take care of the baby and get some sleep. So, working eleven and twelve hour days for seven in a row, and coming home to care for a newborn, averaging about 1.5 hours of sleep, I didn’t manage to get a post up. Which brings me to right now. If you want to pull me off, pull me off. Just don’t talk about me disappearing. I haven’t had anything as horrid as moving to L.A., or going to school again, or not being able to find a record to deal with, but sometimes my miniscule, pedestrian problems and events in my life distract me, and for that I apologize. I will also say that you’ve gone much longer than this without calling me, and in fact phone calls between us almost invariably start in one direction, from me to you. Plus, I hate the fact that if I just haven’t called, it wouldn’t have even been noticed, but the fact that I’m not posting and possibly affecting your traffic is what’s really bothering you. Again, You couldn’t manage to get throught to me when I had a child, but my not posting is what you’re worried about. Nice priorities.

P.P.S Rachel is right, pulling someone without talking to them first would be a dick move. The problem is, you should have known that all on your own.

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