Greater Satellites

So I played hookie from work on Friday.  More specifically I went in around 10am, stayed until noon when I decided to switch from Citizens Bank to Commerce Bank, then left to take a glorious day trip down the shore with my lady.  We went down to Wildwood at first and braved a bit of rain to in order to take a few pictures, eat some funnel cake, play some ski ball, and briefly walk the boards.  On our way back to the car, we both got our palms read and discovered a lots of interesting things we kind of already knew about ourselves, but were amazing to hear from a complete stranger.  I recommend getting it done at least once, if your funds allow it.

After that got old, we decided to take a trip to the neighboring Atlantic City to gamble and find a place to stay overnight.  We ended up at the Atlantic Palace by chance and got a room with a great ocean view.  We walked the boards a bit more, hit Ballys for a bit of gambling fun, and then back to the room after a junky dinner.  Relaxation in the hot tub and a little Conan O’Brien ensued.

The next day was all gravy: Lots of sleep and eventually going out to see the incredibly awesome Wall-E.  It stands on it’s own among the Pixar films, only bested (in my opinion) by Toy Story.  Highly recommended.  Now all we have left to see is The Incredible Hulk, Indy 4, and Wanted.

Yesterday was a great day of sleep, a family barbecue over Jackie’s pad with lots of delicious foods, and more relaxation.  I really love the time I spend with my girl.

This life blog brought to you by Andrew, writing to preserve the memories of yesterday.

Well, this is a long time coming, but I figure it’s better late than never. First and foremost, I’d like to extend the deepest thanks to my lady, Jackie, for being my designated driver and putting up with my completely-sloshed ass on the way home and well into the following day. Definitely wouldn’t had such a great time without you there!

Whiskey Tango was the place and the time was around 9PM when I did my first shot (a Jolly Rancher) with Jackie and Denise, followed very shortly thereafter by a Vodka Cranberry. I was pretty determined to stick to clear liquors all night, but those false hopes were disbanded when I switched over to Long Island Iced Teas. I guess it’s better to stick to what I remember and that is the following:

• My first shot with D and Jackie
• The ensuing Vodka Cranberry
• Jon’s Long Island Iced Tea For me
• Playing some pool with the fellas
• Catching up with everyone, mingling as best I could
• Jager Bomb #1
• Long Island Iced Tea #2
• Jager Bomb #2
• …..

So yeah, this marks the first time I’ve ever drank so much that I blacked certain parts of my night out. Not exactly responsible behavior, but I had a good time and I’ve pretty sure everyone did as well. It was great getting back out with all the friends in the context of a large group. Due to schedules and generally just “growing up”, I think it happens a little less than I’d like, but if we did it once, we can certainly do it again. Midnight summer BBQs anyone?Thanks to all that came out and even to those who tried but couldn’t come out. Who said 23 is just another year?

If I said I was still recovering from last night as I type this, I wouldn’t be doing last night any justice.

Yesterday started around 12AM when I let Jackie open her present, the ear-orgasm-inducing Bose SoundDock. She let out a shriek of glee as she opened it and assaulted me with a barrage of hugs and kisses to show her appreciation. We went to bed shortly thereafter and the day began around 11AM. I made her a breakfast of home fries (and nothing else… her request) while I had a cheese omelet.

Upon cleaning up the dishes and getting dressed, we went to Lauren’s house up near Willow Grove so that the birthday girl and her best friend could get their hair cut.  We were in and out of there surprisingly quick, and after dropping Lauren off at home we went to Best Buy to surprise Christopher (Jackie’s cousin).  Jackie ended up buying 20th anniversary edition of The Monster Squad, which we’re currently watching, and the 25th anniversary edition of Halloween (I’m so proud of her).

After all of that excitement, we came back to her house and took a short nap in anticipation of the festivities to come.  We almost ended up going to Cherry Hill to hit up some new threads, but decided to swing by my house to grab some new clothes and whatnots.  We arrived back at Jackie’s around 8-ish, showered and got all sexied up, and rolled out to Cavanaugh’s River Deck. It was a great time and we were joined by the likes of: Sylvia, Paul, Dorothy, Peter, Polish Adam, Adam, Bob, and Mark.  Everyone was thoroughly thrashed by the end of the night and fun was had by all.  If I can gather up all of the pictures, I’ll post them in a Flickr photo stream.  We left at last call and ended up going to bed around 4am.  It was a great time.

Today was spent recovering.  Lots of naps, Powerade, and fast food.  I had a great weekend and I’m pretty sure Jackie did as well.

It’s hard to know where to begin after leaving off writing for so long. My initial intentions for getting this domain set up was basically so I could have my own place to blog but ever recently I’ve either shirked the task or just downright did not have enough time. Well let’s hope I can change that all around. I’m trying my best to post at least once a week for the rest of the year. Call it a late New Year’s Resolution. Let’s get this recap under way…

Since last I blogged, a little over a month ago, quite a bit has happened. Nothing huge, but all things worth mentioning for memory’s sake: Two one-month-increment anniversaries on the road to the big one year, first small vacation with the lady, Jimmy Buffet concert with Denise, a promotion at work, some minor construction in the room area, and not to mention Jackie’s birthday tomorrow. Come with me on this journey…

I’ll follow the order that I listed them above just to keep everything nice and tidy, which puts us at the 8th and 9th month anniversary days. In case you didn’t know the day is the 15th of every month. How I remember is pretty cheap, but it serves it’s purpose as my personal mnemonic device. For those of you who’ve seen V For Vendetta, the day Jackie and I officially started going out was the fifteenth of November, so I modified it to say “Remember, remember, the fifteenth of November” and since then I have not forgotten. We’re usually pretty chill about out anniversary dates, as they’ve been pretty variable throughout the week (only a few have fallen on a party night [read: Friday or Saturday]). We usually just relax and watch a movie, have some dinner, and enjoy each other’s company. Two nights ago I bought dinner from Bennigans, gave Jackie a card (I’m such a sap sometimes), and we just relaxed watching some TV and playing around on the computer. Last night we also got together and celebrated Jackie’s birthday a few days early because her parents are leaving for a week of partying in the mountains (it’s their anniversary). It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows her that she had a Superman cake (for the 2nd consecutive year, if I’m not mistaken), which I’ll have pictures of soon enough. After the commotion died down and most of her family left or went to sleep we watching Employee Of the Month, laughed a bit at that, and then called it a night. As I was leaving her house two big motherfuckin raccoons ran by my legs about 2 feet from where I was standing. I’m actually not sure if they were big raccoons or not because that’s the first time I’ve ever seen one that close, but they were the size of small dogs and looked mean as hell. I’m just realizing this is my second run in with a wild animal I’ve never seen up close before in the past month, because when we went on vacation to Promised Land State Park…

…We ran into a big ass BEAR! There were two, actually, one cute cub which I snapped a picture of and a shit-yourself-big mama bear. Needless to say, well all slept in our cars that night. Let’s back up just a moment to the start of it… I had Jury Duty on the day we planned to leave (July 13th). I wanted to have that shit wrapped up way earlier that week, but things happen and Jackie and I didn’t end up leaving for the State Park until well after 6 (it may have even been 7). Regardless, we start trekking up there in her car blasting through traffic and listening to some tunes. We got a little lot lost but it’s all fun because we pretty much rule and made a great time out of it. By the time 11pm rolled around and we still weren’t where we needed to be we called Denise to let her know we’re hotel-ing it up. Turns out we were about 30-45 minutes off course, and we still needed to set up a tent, eat, and eventually get some sleep. We drove right in to a Best Western and shacked up for the evening. We hit the bar downstairs and had a few drinks. Jackie actually only had part of a 7&7, mainly because, well, it’s a fuckin 7&7. After that we went back up to our room and eventually went to sleep. Camping rules.

The next morning we awoke, showered, and rolled out shortly before 11. We bought a map, got our bearings, filled up the gas tank, and bounced our way to the state park. It was a nice ride through a variety of quaint little neighborhoods that you’d think only existed in movies. It was a great day to drive and just be outside in general… We arrived at the State Park shortly after noon. We set up our tent in record time and were surprised at how spacious it is. Made some lunch and just loafed around for a bit until we decided to play some volleyball and toss the disc around for a bit. Volleyball went ok… I’m not too good at it, but always willing to try again (on the sand of the beach, maybe?). After Volleyball Denise and I played frisbee for a bit while Jackie and Kathy talked, took pictures, and took in the scenery. Denise phone was stolen (naggers!), and that was the beginning of the end of that trip. When we got back to the camp site, we cooked up some delicious dinner (burgers and dogs, the American way) and tried to get comfortable. I found it difficult to do so up there between the bugs and lack of seating (bench vs. rock vs. ground). After making smores, one of our neighbors told us there was a bear cub in a tree on his site. We checked it over to verify he wasn’t bullshitting us and boom, bear cub. Now I’ve heard, along with everyone else camping, that wherever baby goes, mommy is sure to follow. We didn’t see mommy right away, because she was hiding from us (which in retrospect is kind of funny, considering she was like an 800 pound black bear… how do you hide?). We were all pretty spooked and it wasn’t until our fire died that mommy came out to play. After seeing that big MF’er, we decided to regroup and take some action. I intended to run right into the bear and skewer it with a plastic fork a la Troy, but everyone said stuff like “It’s a bear, you will die” etcetera, etcetera so I decided instead to just wrap up our food as best we could and head for the safety of glass and metal… the cars. Jackie, Denise, and I slept in Jackie’s car and Kathy slept in hers (only Asians could possibly sleep comfortably in Hondas).

We woke up around 6AM, packed everything up, and rolled out. We hit Perkins on the way out and I bought breakfast because everyone looked like they needed a pick-me-up, and then started rolling home. We arrived home in the early afternoon and dispersed. Total vacation time: 3 days, 2 nights. Total time Jackie and Andrew actually camped: 0. One night in a hotel, one night sleeping in the car. We rock.

The next big event was the Jimmy Buffet concert. There’s not much to say about it other than the fact that it was fantastic. I had a blast and got wrecked off of Landshark Lager (a thumbs up in my book) and huge frosty Margaritas. We were successfully able to sneak alcohol in and although I saw two separate instances of man-wang, I saw enough sets of boobies for it not to be considered a gay concert. Jimmy is good people in my book.

Another short but noteworthy mention is my raise/promotion at work. I won’t go in to salary details on here because I’m not trying to be braggadocios about what I make, but let’s just say I received a little over $2 more per hour and I’m in a position to have as many as one person working directly beneath me. Fun times, indeed.

I tore my wall apart two weekends ago and put up some new awesome shelves to store my books, CD/DVD media, and random crap that I didn’t want in my desk. This past weekend I also bought a new desk chair that’s no less than 114% more comfortable than the old one. What does all of this mean for raising my at-home computing productivity? Nada. But it certainly does look nice.

Last, but certainly not by any stretch of the imagination least, is Jackie’s B-day tomorrow. Now I can’t really re-cap it since it didn’t happen yet and I don’t own a flux capacitor, but it’s a pretty safe bet that it’s going to be one hell of a good time. There will be pictures, oh yes, there will be pictures documenting the whole evening and I’m totally looking forward to it. Last year at Jackie’s birthday was the first time we actually truly hung out and I started grasping just how awesome she really is. One might say that was the night that kick started it all, so it’s kind of a warm and fuzzy feeling for me being out with her again, a year later, only playing a better role in her life. The role of boyfriend extraordinaire (her words, not mine [ok, they were my words]). Look forward to more blogs over the coming weeks so I don’t have to write long diatribes like this any friggin more.

This will be my first blog post in quite a while, almost 2 months actually. So much for keeping this thing up-to-date with bleeding edge news about me and my life. Where to begin? I suppose I can work backwards from today as far as I can remember…

Yesterday was the four month anniversary of Jackie and I being the most bangin’ couple I know. She’s the Eve to my Adam, the Lucy to my Desi, the Juliet to my Romeo. Dare I say: the Lois to my Clark? I’ve never been happier and I attribute a large portion of that to her. That’s not to say she’s my crutch, it’s just me saying that I love her without trying and enjoy every new moment with her more than the last. Am I gushing? I guess I should stop…

A few days back, I was informed by a certain someone that MySpace (bleck!) is hosting a short film contest and all entries must be in on by March 23rd. I decided to really give this thing a shot and wrote up a script that’s (unfortunately) still a work in progress. I’d like to have it wrapped up by this evening and shoot it over the weekend, use next week for editing and other post production work, and then upload it to MySpace and hope for the best. The working title is, simply, 5 or Five. It has just one main character, the up-and-coming starlet Jaqueline Sauer. I’m sure regardless of what happens in the contest, it will eventually make it’s way onto this site and my YouTube as well.

As a brief aside, delete your MySpace account and sign up at VIRB. It’s the greatest social networking tool since the two-cans-connected-via-a-string.

I purchased a brand spankin 24″ iMac about two weeks ago along with some other neat stuff: an Airport Extreme, a set of M-Audio Studio Monitors (speakers), and a spiffy new desk. My workflow has been greatly improved and although I haven’t had too much of a chance to really get deep into editing or web design recently, both of those tasks are on my plate for the coming weeks.

Last Tuesday marked the end of my three month probation period at work. I was fairly confident that I would be asked to stay on and my premonition was spot on. I received my full health benefits (still in the works, actually), a 15% raise, and brand new equipment. That equipment being a new Core 2 Duo machine and three 19″ monitors. Score!

A great lady, a brand new computer (both at home and work), a fantastic new wage, and an all-around readiness to create something great. Life is on the rise with no signs of slowing.