My parents come home this afternoon, sometime around 4:30 or 5, if I was a betting man, and the house needs some serious cleaning. Its really not that bad, but if my mom comes home and sees all the laundry that we haven't done or all the dishes in the sink and some of the general sloppiness elsewhere, she's going to flip out. And there's nothing worse to listen to than my mom screaming at us. The good thing is that she does it so much that I'm pretty much desensitized to it now, but that still doesn't change the fact that I don't want to get yelled at. Hell, I'd be pissed off anyway just to be coming back home after a nice long vacation in the sun. I know I was when I got home from the UK the last time I went. Add on top of the fact that your vacation is over and that you must go back to normal life a ton of laundry and dirty dishes and you have a recipe for disaster. So of course, me being the responsible one has already started the first of what will probably be at least 4 or 5 loads of laundry today. I know I can't count on my brothers for any kind of help in any arena like that as they're both completely useless. Thats why I know I'm my parent's favorite. =) I am, trust me, I have to be. At this moment I'm probably the only one who's going to give them grandchildren, so that puts me pretty high on the list!

Alright, time to shower, run to the bank for my mom and keep at all this laundry. Have a good weekend everyone! I'm going to try to, and should be successful, unless I get yelled at!

I walk away from my laptop for a little while and then I see like 11 messages on my Junk Mail filter. I thought, damn, thats a lot of spam. When I go to check it I find that they're all about spammed comments to my blog. I thought, damn, thats a lot of spammed comments. I've gotten a few at once before, but never 11 at once. So I thought, OK, I'll do what I always do, go in, delete them and ban the IP address. So I log into my blog backend and see that there are something like 350+ comments, where there were like 60 yesterday, so I got spammed big time. There were way too many IP addresses to sit there and enter them all in, so I just deleted all them and turned comment approving on. Now I have to OK a comment or the commenter before it gets posted. I was going to enable registration but I didn't have the patience to sit here and figure out how it works, so I said F-it.

I know there's a plug-in for Movable Type to protect against all this stuff called MT-Blacklist, but its not compatible with the new version of MT, which I'm running. Supposedly it'll be out at the end of August, so lets hope it works as promised because I don't feel like deleting 300 or so comments again. The spammers were idiots anyway, the website they were plugging didn't even load. Dumbasses. Oh well, like I said, F-it. I got spammed.

Kicked ass last night! I used to be the biggest 311 fan back in college and seeing them last night reminded me of why I used to love them so much. They rocked and rocked hard! Every song was amazing, and although the audience was mostly filled with teenyboppers who probably only know "Love Song" off the 50 First Dates soundtrack, but thats cool. Hopefully they got turned onto some of their older stuff, which was a lot of what they played. I swear, I must've been the only person in my surrounding area that was singing along and knew the lyrics, but its cool. I had a hell of a time. Randy tried to punk out though. Once their main set was finished he wanted to go, before the encore even started. I was having way too much fun and enjoying it way too much, and they hadn't even played "Down" yet. I said no way, we were sticking around, and with that he made me drive home, even though the deal was I drive there, he drives home. Whatever, it kicked ass! Have I said that already?

Anyway, I've been a lazy bastard today and called in sick. I really wasn't feeling too great when I woke up and I didn't get much sleep all weekend, plus, with all the pot smokers at the concert last night (311 are notorious pot heads) I think I got a bit of a contact high from all the second hand smoke. I woke up feeling like crap, which is usually what used to happen to me back in the day when I did smoke that crap, you know, when I was a retard in college. So I'm just relaxing right now, trying not to pig out on all the left over food from Randy's party. The kid bought way to much food and now its all sitting around, chips and crap like that. Trying to behave here and thats not helping.

So thats about it. Gonna go back to doing nothing today. That's one way to beat a case of the Monday's!

So the party came and went and like I predicted, was pretty underwhelming. I wouldn't even call it a party, it was like Elena said, it was more of a gathering, although at some points it was even slipping down the scale into get together status. The crowd was all of Randy's friends and coworkers, most of whom I didn't know. I spent most of my night hanging out with his friend Jason and his new girlfriend, who actually knows Elena as they went to High School together and is a year younger than Elena.

The party was so boring that I was ready for bed at about 10 PM and the only thing holding me back was Keyser who constantly wanted to see who was here and what was going on. He wouldn't settle down at all. It took Randy letting him run around the house at 1 AM after everyone had left in order for him to calm down. He had to see for himself that the house was empty, and then he passed out. Pain the ass pooch.

So tonight is 311 at Jones Beach and I'm psyched. I haven't seen them in years, so I'm really curious to see them. Originally it was only supposed to be Randy and myself going, as I only bought two tickets. I felt bad for Mark, since he's be stuck at home with the dog and bored, so I bought him a ticket today as well. Yes, I'm a good brother. When it all comes down to it though, the ticket will be free. Ticketmaster has some kind of relationship with American Express and I was able to cash in like 10,000 member points for a free ticket. So they charge my AMEX card and once they see I have enough points for the ticket they take the points and credit my account.

Plus, Mark did me a favor today and helped me aid my Apple addiction. I bought a new iPod today, one of the new 40 gig models with the click-wheel like the iPod mini, which was what drew me to the mini in the first place. I never liked the four buttons under the screen of the previous iPod lines. So I bought the new one at a discount because Mark is still in college and he agreed to buy my iPod mini for $200. That give me some cash back in my pocket and saves me the hassle of having to put my mini on eBay. I'm sure I could get at least $300 for it as a mini is so hard to come by as the wait for one is ridiculous, and will continue to be for the rest of the year. But I'd rather sell it to Mark and get the money now.

Alright, leaving for 311 in a few hours, so time to rock out!

In case you haven't noticed I have a deep affection for all things Apple and Mac related. I loved my old 20 gig iPod and my old iBook, before I sold it on eBay and gave it away, respectively. And I couldn't live without my new PowerBook G4 (not all new, got it November 1) and my matching iPod mini. I love OS X, or Panther if you prefer, I love all the apps like iPhoto and iTunes and I just love that it looks so damn cool. I just got a new Apple device that I love just as much, so much so that I'm trying to restrain myself from getting another one. It's the new AirPort Express

This thing is great. It extends my wireless network at home. With a little tinkering I have it setup the way want to. I have an existing wireless network, courtesy of my Apple Airport Extreme Basestation, but it doesn't cover the whole house, with the Express all I have to do is plug it into the wall and if it gets even the faintest signal from the existing wireless base, it'll extend the range of the network. Just plug it in and you're good to go. If you also jack in a USB printer you can print wirelessly to it, which is pretty cool too.

The coolest thing, by far, is that you can jack your stereo or speakers into it, and through iTunes wirelessly stream music to it, from anywhere in the house. Right now I alternate between my JBL Creature Speakers on my desk, and my Aiwa stereo that my TV is hooked into. Quick swap of the cable and I'm good to go and rocking. It's very cool and I'm fighting the urge to get one more for the den so I can stream to the home theatre system and extend my wireless network to the one place in the house that gets the worst reception and is also the one place you'd relax and surf the web at anyway. We'll see... I did just get paid...

On a related note, you have to love Apple product placement. They're all over the place, on TV shows, movies and in print. I just got the most recent issue of Playboy in the mail yesterday, with Eva Herzigovena on the cover (sorry, but I just didn't find her attractive, at all) and the Playmate of the Month, Ms. September, whatever her name is, in one shot is wearing a pink iPod mini and nothing else. You can't beat that!

Don't you just hate those? Why does the middle day of the week have to crawl by? And I have such an action packed weekend, its not fair. That was a little bit of sarcasm there, as the weekend is only semi-action packed. Friday I'll probably grab some dinner with Brett as his fiance is going out of town. Saturday morning I have a ton of errands to run, including going to the bank for my mom while my parents are on vacation and getting my car services at Elena's dad's garage. Then Saturday night is Randy's big "party" at my house. I say "party" because its more of a gathering or get together, to use Elena's term for it. It's really kind of stupid if you ask me. My parents go away for a week or two every summer for the past six years or so and every summer my older brother throws a party while they're gone.

Its stupid because he's 27 and still lives at home and his "party" is such a pathetic attempt to make up for all the years my parents didn't go away so we couldn't party. Last year it was so exciting that Elena and I went into my room and she watched a movie while I took a nap, at 8 PM!!! I'm not looking forward to it this year, as every year, the guest list mainly contains Randy's co-workers, mostly accountants, and let me tell you, they're so much fun to party with and Mark's stoner friends. Last year I kenneled Keyser at the vet, but I can't do that this year as there are no Sunday pickups at the vet and I can't get there on Monday before or after work, so it looks like Keyser will be partying down with everyone else.

Then Sunday I'm going to see 311 at Jones Beach, same place I saw Blink-182 and No Doubt back in June. Thats what I'm really looking forward to. I used to be a huge 311 fan back in my college days, so much so that I seriously messed up my knee jumping around at one of their shows and needed to have surgery, but went back and saw them again after that anyway. Should be a good show.

Now only if I can pass the day. I've already spent some of it making a new playlist of songs to fit onto my iPod mini, this one is all full CD's that I listen to. I've cleaned out my work e-mail account of some old stuff I don't need and I'm contemplating doing the same for my personal account on my laptop. That's how exciting today is.

I also have to come up with a way to tell tech support at this one company I've been dealing with for two months that we need to close our case and that what we thought was causing our problem, their software, and swore up and down non-stop that it was their software causing the problem, but it really wasn't and was something totally unrelated. That should be interesting. I'm sure I could just lie, but I'm a really bad liar and the truth just makes me look like a dumbass. Oh well, I just may have to swallow my pride and take one for the team on this one. I have all day to figure it out. The tech I've been dealing with has only called my twice today, and its just past noon. I keep letting my voice mail take it. How bad is that?

Well, hope everyone else's Wednesday is going better, or faster than mine. Gonna go get some lunch soon. I'm back on my diet big time and I'm sticking to the program religiously. I'm on day three and so far the only extra things I've eaten were 5 Worther's Caramels off my bosses desk. Been drinking a whole lot of water too. I probably did some damage on vacation and the week after and I need to get serious again, as my clothes have felt a little tighter recently, and thats no good. I'll weigh myself in a week or so once my mom gets back from Bermuda.

All right, I'm out!

File this one under bad karma, I guess. So I got an e-mail from my ex-girlfriend the other day. Our breakup got a little nasty, with her begging to come back and me saying no, and then some really nasty e-mails back and forth. Then I didn't hear from her for months and it was a great thing. So I finally decided to unblock her from my AIM account and wouldn't you know it she contacted me, and asked me for a favor. She wanted a book an old professor gave her that she left at my house and I was happy to oblige and send it to her, as long as she sent me back the key to my house. I just wasn't comfortable with her having it, even though she was 1300+ miles away. So now we chat every so often, mostly about the dogs we had, and I use every opportunity I have when I talk to her to drop hints about how good my life has been since she left and how happy I've been.

I sent her the link to all my Ireland and Scotland pictures, because when I mentioned I was going she said she was jealous and heard it was beautiful, so I figured I'd show just how beautiful it was. So I get an e-mail back from her on Friday and she dropped a bomb on me thats had me feeling pretty bad. Turns out she found out 2 weeks ago that she had cervical cancer and the doctors had to perform a radical hysterectomy. The doctors found that the cancer didn't spread and that she won't need chemo or radiation. The cancer she had is rare, shows up in 5% of women that get that type of cancer and that it normally shows up in women over the age of 50.

Now don't I feel like a jerk, rubbing in how good my life is when hers takes a total turn for the worse. I know I shouldn't really because we broke up over a year and a half ago, but I still feel bad. And part of me is happy we broke up, because if we were still together we'd surely be married by now (and miserable) and then I wouldn't be able to have any kids, which is something I would like to have someday.

I don't know, its just weird, thats all. I sent her back and e-mail saying I was sorry, but glad to hear that she's ok now and won't have to have chemo or anything, but what else do you say to that? Its crazy. I still haven't got a response back from her, but I'm not going to dwell on it. I'm sorry that something horrible happened to her and I feel bad about it and all I've done recently about saying how good my life is, but other than that, I think thats about it. I'm not involved with her anymore and all I can do is wish her the best, which I've done.

But I still feel like an asshole.

So thankfully its the weekend. The jet lag this week hasn't been so bad, but I've definitely been passing out at night just about as soon as my head's hit the pillow. I don't think I've been up for any extended period of time past 10 PM, but oh well. Its the weekend now and I have nothing important to do. Plans for the weekend include getting my haircut this morning because its been like 4 weeks since I got it done and its out of control and needs to be cut. Brett is having a BBQ at his place tonight so I'm going to head over there. That should be fun as there will be some people that I used to hang out, not really friends in the strictest terms, that I haven't seen in awhile, so that should be cool. I had my mom make me some chocolate cream pie for dessert and I'm ready to go with my six pack of Guinness. I'm just hoping it tastes as good out of the bottle as it does from the tap. I have a feeling it doesn't, but you can't blame a guy for trying. Interesting note, in Ireland, twenty or so years ago, they used to tell anemic pregnant women to drink Guinness because there's so much iron in it. Peter's mom did it when she was pregnant with him. May explain why he's so damn skinny, but thats probably just because he's a wee skinny Irish boy.

No real plans tomorrow. May drive out to Long Beach to hang out with Seth and his girlfriend before they leave on their two week cruise around the Mediterranean (wow, can't believe I spelled that right on my first shot!). Then tomorrow night I should be talking to Elena. She's busy working all weekend and has an audition tomorrow so I'm curious to hear how that went. I don't have to secretly root against her on this one, even if she gets a part the show ends right before she comes home anyway, so thats cool. September 24 can't get here soon enough, thats for sure.

Thats about it for the weekend. Hope everyone has a good one. I know I'll be trying to!

That's the date that of Elena's flight home from London, for good! Let the countdown begin!

It was Keyser's birthday yesterday. He's 3. And now I'm waiting for the day to come when he starts acting like an older dog and calms down a little. I really shouldn't complain too much. Aside from the waking up before 5 AM most mornings and his craziness when it comes to trying to get food, he really has mellowed out in his old age. Now, most mornings while I'm getting ready he can be found passed out in someone's bed, on a couch, on my bed or in his cage (which is the most shocking). He's a good little pooch and I missed him while I was away. I don't think he missed me, as I didn't get too much in the way of tail wagging when he saw me when I got home, but I can deal with that. I know he loves me, and he better dammit! Alright, back to work and once again, happy birthday Keyser!!!

Alright, so here we go, I'm back at work and exhausted from a serious case of jet lag. But I feel like I must spew forth the details of my amazing week in Ireland and Scotland, so here you go! Also, Pictures are available now at my .Mac website, just scroll on down and you'll see the most recent photo galleries!

First, since I was all over the place and encountered so many people, let me give you the cast of characters.

Matt: That's me. If you've been here before you probably know more about me than you want to.
Elena: My loving girlfriend, currently wrapping up a year in London getting her graduate degree in musical theatre.
Amanda/Ina: My mom's cousin who lives in Ireland and whose gorgeous house we stayed at. She was born Ina, but changed her name to Amanda.
Paul: Amanda's husband, who is Irish and one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet.
Jen: Elena's best friend. They were roommates at NYU and it was Jen that first had the idea to go to London for graduate work and got Elena to go with her. She's a singer too.
Peter: Jen's boyfriend who lives in Edinburgh. They met last summer while Jen was in Scotland working the big festival thats held every August.
Clayface: Peter's band, consisting of lead singer Matt, Peter and Paul on guitar, Malcolm on bass and Aaron on drums. We hung out with them a lot, since they all live together, minus Malcolm. Great guys, a blast to get drunk, or pissed as they say in the UK, with.

OK, so now that you know who most everyone is, here are the details.

Friday, July 2: I got to the airport with way too much time to spare, so much so that the check-in agent was curious as to why I was even standing in her line. I had to explain that it was because as being freakishly tall I needed a better seat, which she happily provided for me. Once that was all set I made my way to the gate to chill out for about the next three hours. I passed the time by watching some DVD's, surfing the web with the $6.95 wireless connection in the terminal and drinking a couple of pints of beer to get a nice buzz going so I could pass out once on board. I finally boarded the plan, passed out like planned and woke up sometime Saturday morning with about two hours to go until we landed in London.

Saturday, July 3: Plane landed and I hauled ass through the terminal only to wait on an excruciatingly long line at passport control. Once I finally got to the agents desk he gave me the third degree and 20 questions about why I was there, how long I was staying, when was my return date, where Elena went to school and even asked to see my return ticket. Once I was through I went to baggage claim and from a distance saw that my suitcase was about to leave the conveyor belt area so I ran like hell and grabbed it and rolled on through customs. Elena was waiting for me on the other side, so we kissed and hugged and made our way through to the Underground to hop on the tube and make our way to her flat.

Finally made it to her place and chatted with Jen and Karina, Elena's roommate. Once they finally headed in their own seperate directions Elena and I took a much needed nap. Once we were up we headed into town and caught a matinee of Shrek 2, which was pretty funny and cute, but not as good as the first one, then we headed into Central London to grab some Mexican for dinner, changed my cash to Pounds and got raped on the conversion fee and headed back to her flat where we packed for Ireland and Scotland and finally went to bed.

Sunday, July 4: Weird thing about Elena. She sets her alarm clock 20 minutes fast. That way, she can get two snoozes in and still be on time. So we set the alarm for like 5 AM, because we have a taxi coming to take us to the airport at 6. Alarm goes off, I get up, shower, shave, get dressed. I wake Elena up, tell her to go shower. I sit down, hop online and notice that the clock on her laptop reads 3:30 AM. She comes out of the shower not to happy to hear this. So we go back to bed after she resets her alarm. Then, we're woken up by the taxi driver buzzing us. Turns out she reset the clock, but didn't turn the alarm on. So we haul ass getting ready and hop in the cab. Check in at the airport, go through security, you know the drill. We finally get to Ireland and meet up with my cousin who is so happy to see us she's ready to explode. Turns out we're the first family, aside from her mother, who's ever come to visit her, so she's thrilled beyond belief. We pile into the car and head off to do some sight seeing. First up were the Cliffs of Moher, which we pretty damn beautiful. Check out the pics for yourself. Of course the pics don't do it justice. Next up were the Alliwee Caves, which were pretty interesting too. Not much to them and I've seen bigger caverns in Upstate NY, but it was cool. We then headed to a cafe to get a quick bite to eat and then back to her house so we could get some rest. After a nice long nap we got up, got some Chinese take out for dinner, which wasn't half bad and took a nice little walk around where she lived before settling in for a movie and then bed.

Monday, July 5: Woke up and got ready to head into Galway, Ireland to take a boat trip out to the Aran Islands, which were off the coast of Galway. Let me tell you, I have never seen a rockier country than Ireland, or at least the part that I was in. Everywhere you go there are little rock walls blocking off squares of land for livestock to graze in. Crazy. I've never seen so much grey in my life and the Aran Islands, or at least the one of the three we were on, was so damn rocky it wasn't funny. Highlight of the Aran Islands, walking up to this pre-historic fort called Dun Aonghaso. Pretty interesting up there, again, with some pretty breathtaking pictures to check out. Also caught a little show in the main town with authentic Irish dancing and music called Ragus. That was cool and Elena really liked it. Took the boat and bus combo back into Galway where we got some dinner, then met up with Amanda and Paul and headed back to their house. Watched another movie and went to bed.

Tuesday, July 6: We weren't in the mood to get up early and take another tour of who knows what, so we took our time getting up and went into Galway city around 2:00 or so. We went looking for this boat cruise thing up the main river in town but had no luck finding it. Not like Galway was that big, we just had no clue where we were going. I had an easier time getting around Edinburgh than Galway, and Edinburgh was much, much bigger. We finally found the tour and had to wait because we missed the boat. We killed some time just walking around the city and when it came time for the boat tour we climbed on board and proceeded to get bored to death. We took a nap, a nap that cost something like 24 Euros, or about $30. We got off the boat and grabbed a quick bite to eat before heading over to the opening night of the Galway Film Fleadh, or festival. Saw a pretty cool movie called Ae Fond Kiss about clashing cultures and romance. Once the movie was over we had another quick bite at the festival's opening night bash then headed back to my cousins house to pack and talk until about midnight. Our flight was at 7:00 AM the next morning so my cousin hired a cab for us at 4:00 AM to get us there on time.

Wednesday, July 7: Barely went to sleep the night before and got up at 3:30 AM, this time on purpose, cab came at 4:00 to take us to the airport, where, upon arrival nothing was open. We had to wait for someone to staff the checkin, wait for someone to staff security, and wait for someone to staff the gate. From what my cousin told me, thats classic Irish laziness for you. Nothing against the Irish, they were great people, but according to my cousin, most of them, her husband included, are just lazy. So we got in the air and landed in London and then proceeded to check into our next flight heading to Edinburgh. Once we were all checked in we had some time to kill so we watched some of a DVD, finally boarded, and did the whole travel thing until we got off a bus in the heart of Edinburgh to meet Jen, who was so happy to see us and so happy that we came to visit she could hardly contain herself. We made our way to our hotel, which was pretty damn cool, it was more like a little flat, with a living room, little kitchen table, and mini kitchen itself, with a stove, oven, sink, microwave, washing machine and dishwasher. Elena and I took a nap while Jen watched a movie, then we set out to walk around Edinburgh. Beautiful city, let me tell you. The castle is amazing and its just in the middle of town, up on a stone hill with sheer cliff faces. Crazy. The city is multileveled too, with all this little streets called close's running up and down them. We walked all over the, see the pics and headed to eat some Indian food. We met up with Peter, Jen's boyfriend at the restaurant and when were done got some drinks at a bar down the road, then headed to Peter's flat where we drank some more. Once we were tired we headed back to our hotel via cab and went to bed.

Thursday, July 8: Got up and caught the bus to Peter's flat and one of his roommates drove Elena, Jen and myself to Arthur's Seat, this mountain/hill thing on the outskirts of town which we proceeded to climb up, which was insanely crazy. It was pretty damn high up and it was windy as hell up there. I thought I was going to get blown away or something. Took some pics up there, but again, a picture doesn't do it justice. This thing is massive and climbing up was a feat and accomplishment in and of itself. We climbed back down and then walked up the Royal Mile all the way from the bottom where there's a palace where the Queen stays when she's in town all the way up to the top, which is Edinburgh Castle. We took the castle tour which was really, really cool. Then headed back to the hotel to take a nap before meeting Jen and Peter for dinner before his band played at a local club. The performance was pretty good and Jen joined the band to sing backup on a song. We then headed up the street to another bar, where it just so happened to be karaoke night. A couple of pints of Guinness later and I was singing Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer." I rocked, it was cool. Headed back home and went to sleep for the night.

Friday, July 9: Slept in big time and met Jen and Peter for lunch before we went back to the hotel again and just chilled for the rest of the day. Made reservation to take this haunted tour of Mary King's Close, one of those streets I mentioned that link up the lower parts of the city to the upper part. Its supposedly haunted because of all the plague victims that died down there. I didn't get a weird vibe, but it was cool down there. Met up with Matt, Peter's flatmate and lead singer of the band and his girlfriend and had some dinner. Then headed to a bar to drink, some more, and met up with Aaron, pronounced Arn to Irish (they're all Irish, from Northern Ireland, so technically UK citizens) and hung out till the bar closed. Went back to the hotel and went to bed.

Saturday, July 10: Left Edinburgh that day at around 7:00 PM, but before hand walked around to the Hard Rock Cafe to get Elena's Mom's friend some pins, because she collects them. Headed to Peter's and just relaxed for a few hours, watched a movie. Then we left to get a bite to eat at the Hard Rock and appropriately sat in the Bon Jovie memorabilia section. It was fate I tell you. Got some good food then picked up our luggage at the hotel and headed for the airport. Your usual flight home and taxi ride back to Elena's. We got some dinner, relaxed a little and then had the best and longest lasting sex we've ever had. Sorry, had to throw that in there. Went to sleep.

Sunday, July 11: Packed in the morning and relaxed most of the rest of the day. Taxi came to pick us up in the afternoon and got the airport and proceeded to check in. They had no open seats for me to switch with so I could be more comfortable so I was forced to upgrade to business class! That was awesome, let me tell you. I must've had three glasses of champagne, two and a half of wine and a screwdriver all within the first hour or two of the flight. Great stuff. Elena and I said goodbye at the airport and although it sucked to leave, technically its the last goodbye like that we have to do, as the next time I leave her at the airport in London, she'll be following suit a few days later. So its all good.

So I'm exhausted and this work day is over. I know the details are kind of odd on my trip, but if you want details details, drop me an e-mail or something, I'll be glad to answer your question. In the meantime, go to Edinburgh before you die, preferably in the summer, because its not as cold and it stays light out until about 11 PM at night, which is awesome. Alright, I'm out, adios, enjoy... I'm going to bed as soon as I get home. Jet lag sucks.

And damn was it amazing. Explicit and long details to follow. Lets just say its 11:34 PM here, now and my body thinks its 4:30 AM London time. Thankfully the last few nights of my vacation we stayed up until 3:00 AM most nights. So I'm off to bed, if I can fall asleep. I'll post the pics to my .Mac home-page and trip details here as soon as my body recovers. All I can say is, I highly recommend visiting Ireland and Scotland. Ireland was very beautiful and peaceful and Edinburgh, Scotland was just so much damn fun, I can't even begin to describe it, just go there, you won't regret it! Alright, off to sleep. Hope everyone had a great week in my absence and didn't miss me too much! Adios and good night.

Alright, in a few short hours I will be on a plane and on my way to see Elena! I can't wait and neither can she from the IM's we were just trading back and forth. Now I'm totally all set and packed and all thats left to do is get there already! I weighed my suitcase last night and it was exactly 70 pounds. I took some stuff out and had to add in my bathroom stuff, which wasn't much. Hopefully I won't go over, and if I do, I have a huge duffel bag in my suitcase, I can always offload clothes into that.

Other than that, I'm just trying to kill the next couple of hours of work. I'm leaving early, even though my flight doesn't leave until 8 PM. I want to get to the airport super early because I have the feeling that its going to be packed and I really need to get a better seat. My seat sucks, big time. All the way in the back in coach, with very little legroom. I need to beg for a bulkhead or exit row seat, thats for sure. Worst case, I could cash in some of my miles for a business class seat and get trashed on the free champagne on my way over so I can get some sleep. We'll see. I'm not worried. If I have a crappy seat I have a crappy seat. Nothing I can do about it.

So, nothing else really to blab about. I'll try to hop online while I'm over there, but no guarantees. I'll be back on the 11th otherwise! Have a great 4th of July everyone and a kick ass week in my absence! I know I'll be having fun!

Alright, one more day to go and then I'm off this continent! Can't wait, but I'm sure I've said that a million times before. Thankfully its been a somewhat busy week at work so the time has passed a decent pace, and hell, its already 3:30 in the afternoon and this is the first chance I've had to sit and collect my thoughts all day long. The day started out with running some upgrades to this crappy app I've been fighting to get fixed for the past two months. Of course the upgrade didn't fix our main problem, hell, it actually broke something else. In the end, that was kind of a good thing because in order to get it working again we had to make some changes that should actually make this one thing work better. I could go into detail, but its boring, so I'll spare you. So I still fight with the tech support people to get this thing fixed, so it'll definitely be hanging over my head when I get back. Oh well, what ya gonna do?

So I packed last night and I'm a little worried my suitcase weighs too much. Either that or I'm a wimp, and honestly, option 2 is a viable one. I'm going to drag the thing to my mom's office (she works for a doctor so they have a scale, something we don't have in the house) so I can weigh the damn thing. It better come in at under 70 pounds or I'm going to have to offload a lot of my clothes, since they can't get crushed, unlike most of Elena's stuff, into a duffell bag of some sort. If the weight is OK, I'm good to go because the only thing I have to add to it are bathroom stuff, and maybe one pair of shorts to sleep in, and thats it. I'm good to go baby!!!! I so can't wait to get there... and there I go again, repeating myself.

Other than that, nothing new to report. Elena is psyched about me coming, which is great to hear, instead of the usual, "I'm too busy to get excited," line I've gotten in the past. This time I think its the opposite, she has nothing to do but work part time, so she's got all the time to think about it and get excited. And also she really has changed the way she is, which is a good thing. And I think we're going to have to have a somewhat serious talk when I get there. Not about anything bad, I just need to tell her something I've been meaning to for awhile, but not everything has fallen into place until recently. And no, I'm not asking her to marry me, I'm not getting engaged. If I was going to do that, I think Paris would've been the best location to do that! I just want to talk to her about some stuff that happened in the past, thats all.

Alright, thats it. Enough babbling by me. I'll check in again tomorrow as we wait the tortuous wait to leave for the airport, wait at the airport, wait on the plane... all that fun stuff. On a good note, I should have Internet access we're I'm staying, in both countries so I may make a post, or put up some pictures at my .Mac site. I make no promises though. Adios for now!