Strum

So my mom really surprised me this xmas by getting me an acoustic guitar.

I had been itching to learn the guitar for a while now, and when I unwrapped the mess of paper and blankets to reveal the beauty within I was quite shocked. It was completely unexpected, which is rare for me lately.

Music seemed to be the theme for my family this xmas. My sister got her sax, I got my guitar, and we got two of my nieces little beginner guitars.

With my niece and I both having a guitar now, I've agreed to teach her what I learn, and help her as much as I can. I'm looking forward to this as I know I'm having a blast learning the ins and outs of it. I hope my niece does too.

I'm quite excited about this really. This is the only hobby that I could actually profit from other than relieving boredom. I've never known what I wanted to do with my life career-wise. I still don't know, but maybe this guitar will spark something. I'm not saying I want to be in a band or anything, but it's fun to wonder what I'll be able to do. If anything, I'll be able to not only listen, but play music, and that alone is worth it.

At Midnight We Laughed About Roger's Poo.

You know, after xmas is over and done with, I really regret writing my previous post. I let things in my mind build up, and they recently have leaned to the negative. I should stop doing that, because I can make things (and people) sound a lot worse than they are.

This xmas is a prime example.

This year, for me, was probably the best xmas I have ever had. This had nothing to do with the presents or anything. What made this the best for me was, ironically, my family.

It started when I pulled out the big gift for my sister. It was an alto saxophone, something we have been wanting to get her for years, but haven't been able to until now. She used to play when she was in highschool (when I was a child, and was extremely good. When she opened and saw what it was, she immediately started crying, along with my mom, my niece, my dad, and my eyes got all misty (no pun intended). It was hard for me to take any pictures, since my hands were shaking.

When she blew a note, it sent me way way back into memories buried into the depths of my mind. When I was a kid, and my family was the world to me. Before I knew of the things that bring us down and cast a dark haze over everything. I felt so happy for my sister, happier than I have felt in a long, long time. Too long. That moment was the highlight of the year for me.

With the idea of my moving to Texas in my head, I am realizing how much the family means to me. My family, along with Rob, who I consider family, are the most important things in my life, and I wouldn't be here if it weren't for them.

As my sister opened her sax, something in me sparked. I'm not sure what, but I looked around at my family, and felt like a kid. There were no worries, just me, my family, and that happy feeling of everything being awesome. It was overwhelming, and I'm still pretty emotional. I'm still not sure exactly what it's about, but it hit me big. It's even made me miss my brother..... and if you know me at all, that's HUGE.

After the gifts were through, we all gathered before lunch, and my uncle said grace. Which for me basically means I stood there holding random family members hands while thinking of boobies and porn, because that's funny when people talk about jesus. After he was done, I felt compelled to say something to the family.

"If I could say something...", I said, voice shaking. People stop and turn back to look at me.

I take a breath, make sure not to look at anyone, and say, "I know I don't say much, but I just want to say that I am extremely proud to be a part of this family." with a voice breaking with emotion.

I look at the ground, tears in my eyes, my family cheers, many of them suddenly with watery eyes of their own. My sister cries again, my mom cries again, my niece cries again, my other niece wipes her nose on my hand and giggles.

My mom and aunt both hug me. My aunt looks up at me, then at my mom. She smiles, and casually says, "I guess we can keep him."

A Matter of Hours

It is now Xmas Eve morning. I just now finished wrapping all the presents, excluding the few last minute ones later on. Every instinct in my body is screaming at me to get to bed. Instead I thought I should write something.... not sure what, but...something.

So here I am, risking the chance of being under rested for the big couple of days, trying to think of something to write.

This is one of the first Xmases I can think of that I haven't been all that excited about. I have a more "let's get this over with" feeling towards it.... I'm not sure why.

Maybe it's dealing with the whole family that I'm uneasy about. I used to be extremely proud of my family, and I still am, but I feel the tension during gatherings has increased. There is more of a "walking on eggshells" feeling.

A lot of my generation in the family has grown into their own selves, unfortunately, that isn't so good. A few have turned yuppie, and bitchy, and seem to have lost a lot of the courtesy they once had. If you get them a gift they don't like, they are liable to throw it back at you. They take everything for granted, a fact that made me suggest that we don't waste our money on the likes of them. And as I have grown, it is increasingly harder to keep my mouth shut.

I really can't stand that attitude. I am grateful for every single gift I get, whether I like it or not. It's not the gift, it's what drives the person to get it for you. I hope that people buy me gifts not out of the feeling that they have to, but because they want to. It shouldn't be this feeling some of the others give off..... the "yeah, but if we get them nothing we'll be blacklisted" feeling of guilt buying. Personally if they are going to act like that, I think I prefer to be blacklisted.

So much for the cheery merry xmas post, eh. Anyway, have fun and be safe. :)

New Title.

This blog needs a new title. The current one sucks now, and is too melodramatic. I need something brighter. So it's time for my brain to start up the process known as coming up with a name. A very long process indeed.

Places You Hate Can Still Produce Things You Love.

A few nights ago two of my nieces had a school program, of which I try to attend every year. This year was no different, so after a full day of frantic shopping in town, I prepared myself of an evening of frantic kids.

Walking through the halls of a school again is always an uneasy experience. No matter what school it is, the memories come back. That uneasy, almost fear feeling comes back, and I wish to be anywhere else but that cold, unforgiving hall. That will probably stay with me my whole life. Have I mentioned that I hated school more than anything in this world? Well, I did, and do, but that isn't what I've come here to talk about.

I want to talk about my niece's programs, which were great, as always, but this year was special. Special because I finally had the wonderful little invention called a digital camera.

I didn't get as many good pictures as I would have liked, as I am still learning the ins and outs of my camera (Maybe I should read the manual), but I came up with some images that I really like. Here are just a few.


I was playing around with slow shutter before the show started, and ended up getting this intriguing image.


I love this picture. That is the eldest of the two nieces heading to her classroom. It's blurry, but I think that fits the action of the image.


My sister, mom, and two nieces. We don't have enough group pictures, something I plan on changing. Also, my sister is chewing gum.


My younger niece proving that, yes, she does indeed belong in my family.


After a very long and hectic day, one is ready to retire for the night.

Uh Oh.

It's the last week before Christmas, and I'm up at midnight. My sleeping schedule is slipping at a most inopportune time. This does not bode well.

Let The Race Begin.

So here we are, but a few week from Christmas. We should be done with our shopping, and just relaxing, saving energy for the absolute mad house that is my family's Christmas. Wrong. A case of the flu came around and set us back. We have what's left of this week to get most of our shopping done. This means from now on, my life is gonna be crazy.


To assist in your understanding, let me explain what our life will be like starting Friday.

On Friday the 17th My dad comes home from California and has his week off. Yay vacation.... no wait, on Saturday Dad and I head to Roseburg and get some of our shopping done, which is always a fun time.

On Sunday it's off to California....what? California less than a week before Christmas? Yes, my dad needs an MRI done and this is the only time we can do it.

Back Home on Wednesday, just in time for my parents to go up to my brother's in Portland on Thursday. Couldn't they come down and celebrate with the rest of the family and save my parents the stress of racing around so close to Christmas? Ha! Of course not, this is my dickhead brother and his beastly wife we're talking about. They don't want to have to seem considerate. Plus, they can't openly trash talk the family down here, especially me. So they unload all their crap onto my parents, making my mom physially ill, as usual. Just what we need, depression before the busiest two days of the year.

They get back home on the same day, Thursday, and we rest as much as we can before the big day Friday.

Christmas Eve. Here we go. Try and gather your strength.

As I said earlier, our Christmas is a madhouse. We can have a quiet time of a little gift swapping and chit chat, oh no. We must have our Christmas traditions be so big and elaborate, we actually have a rules system.

Every year we designate a family member to host Christmas. This used to be done in a certain order, but has recently changed to a volunteer thing. This year my christian aunt and uncle have volunteered, for the second year in a row, which is really nice of them.

So we get there at around noon, most of us just mill around and talk a bit. Not me though, for I am the Santa. The Santa is the person in charge of gift organization and distribution. For the longest time my awesome aunt (don't want to mention names) was the Santa, and I became the helper. Last year I finally fully took over so she could just sit and have fun. I love being the Santa, I love the organization and everything, it's alot of fun.

So as people come in They put their present in a pile, and from that pile I seperate the presents according to family groups, of which there are six, each with atleast three people, though this year, I may make a seperate pile as there is a new family group forming(one of my cousins got married).

When that is all done we relax and talk a bit, but before ya know it, It's Round One of Present distribution. On Christmas Eve we let the kids open all their gifts, and the Adults all get to open one. Then on Christmas Morning we keep the kids in a room while the parents put out the big, unwrapped presents for the kids. These are Santa presents. So back to round one. Gifts are handed out from youngest to oldest, repeated until there are none left. This year there will be five or six kids, so we may break halfway through and eat the Christmas Eve Dinner, which is mostly dessert.

Once the kids are through with their gifts, it is usually getting late and people are getting tired. We do one round of adults, of which there are fifteen, and depending of how many presents there are, we may sneak in another round.

After that we put the kids to bed, and we all get in our pj's and just relax a bit before we go again the next day.

Christmas Day. Halfway done.

We wake up bright and early. Well, dark and early since the sun wont be up yet, while the parents set up the Santa gifts for their kids. Once they are done, and the kids have cooked up their excitement and impatience long enough, we open the doors and let em out.

After a bit of watching the kids, we clear off the couches, and start again on the Adult Rounds, picking up where I left off last night. With the kids occupied by their new toys, this is uaully a stress free event.

Afterwards we have our Christmas Lunch and spend some time lounging around and talking. Soon we will start to head home.

And that's a Christmas with my family. Lots of hurrying and stress, but well worth it in fun.

Now I must be going, my mom has an appointment in Medford and we have to drop off a few of our presents at my Grandma's (no way everything would fit at once).

(Still need to proofread this, forgive the horrible mistakes I have no doubt made.)

Morning in Oregon.

Argue With a Tree.



Destination: Beautiful.

She Likes To Lick Metal and Mirrors.

And I like to wear Tom and Jerry pajamas.

A Quiz!

I was actually pretty impressed with how accurate it is.

You Are From Neptune

You are dreamy and mystical, with a natural psychic ability. You love music, poetry, dance, and (most of all) the open sea. Your soul is filled with possibilities, and your heart overflows with compassion. You can be in a room full of friendly people and feel all alone. If you don't get carried away with one idea, your spiritual nature will see you through anything.

What Planet Are You From?

My Poor Baby.

So after a long, long wait, I finally get a PS2 fliptop, some boot discs, and King of Colosseum 2. If you know me, you know I'm a pretty big Puro fan, and this game is my heaven, only real. It was initially to be a Christmas gift, but through much grovelling I was allowed to get my hands on it early.

Eager and excited I began the PS2 modification process, which involved taking off certain bits and putting other bits on. It all works wonderfully until I go to put the fliptop on. It didn't fit quite right. I knew I checked the compatibility chart, so this had to be the right top, right? Wrong. I had somehow bought a fliptop for an older PS2 version, so it didn't fit right. About this time I started feeling sick. I had finally come within reach, and I screwed it up, a feeling I know all too well.

Determined, I make it fit as well as I can and hope that it'll still suffice. Now, the PS2 is a very fragile piece of hardware, so I was taking quite a risk at this point. I hooked it all back up, and popped in my swap magic disc (required to play imports), put the lid down and turned it on. The sound I heard wasn't what I wanted. The fliptop lid was rubbing on the disc, creating an awful noise and making my soul hurt. I then went to plan C... or D, I forget.... Plan whatever was to try with the lid open. This seemed to work, I put on the game and started playing.

I had time for one match (which RULED) and a little translating before the disc popped off of the spinner, with the spinner still moving, potentially ruining pretty much everything. Screaming like my own child was hit by a bus, I frantically cut the power and examine the disc for damage, of which, thankfully, there was none. I also think I cradled the disc and assured it that everything was ok, but I'm not sure on that one.

This morning I ordered the correct fliptop, and I should be in business on Friday..... /twitches

Moral of the story: You can never pay enough attention. But who cares about morals anyway.