Speed Racer

Eric decided to race Mike in little motorized kid cars. And lost miserably.

Missing Mikey

My nephew Mikey has an infectious personality. Here he is laughing his ass off.

multi-tasking

Missing Sydney

This was taken at my going away party for Sydney. She's been gone for a couple weeks now, and although I've dealt with her parting...I still miss her a whole bunch.

foot tattoo x2

Indecisive.

I've been tossing this around for the last few weeks. Maybe it's time to pack in this blog. I've peeled back all the fun stuff, like me talking about silly TV shows or about how I want to bang Holllywood starlets and moved all that wisdom (somewhat) over to Poison Scooter: The Blog. That left this blog to become a place that I talk about my daily struggles with the human race and ocassionally post photos from my pursuits. And since I'm paranoid about people from work reading this nonsense and it having an effect on my life, I've been forced to surpress my true thoughts and feelings about a lot of things making the point of this "diary" kind of pointless.

Over the last month or so I've limited my posts dramatically and as a result most likely bored my faithful readers. As a fan of blogs, I usually go to the one's I like every day and when they aren't updated it makes me angry and frustrated. So I feel like I'm letting folks down by not posting for 3 or 4 days in a row. And when I do post it's usually nothing very exciting.

I'm settling in to my golden years here in Georgia. I work. I spend time with the same crew of people drinking beer and sitting by the pool. I've turned my love life around and appear to have found happiness in the most unlikey candidate, one that I really don't want to talk about too much in cyberspace. (I've jinxed so many relationships in the past by endlessly divulging them here I feel.) My new attitude is...if you want to know how I'm doing, then call me and find out. Or email me. Or write me a post card. This forum has been so one sided, I tell you everything and I get nothing in return. And I think it has run it's course.

My hope is that my slack ass brother Mike will decide to once again assist me with launching PoisonScooter.com and that in the meantime you will all read the PS blog. I may re-launch this as merely a photoblog, a place to post pictures that I'm happy I took. And I might actually give you a back story about the shot or a story about the person in the picture. Who knows...the camera has remained idle for weeks now. It's been really theraputic to have this outlet for the last couple of years. I regret none of what I've written. Thanks for reading...

The Weekend

Pretty good weekend for a change. I didn't do much, but spent some quality time with a cool chick just getting to know each other better. Watched The Matador on Friday night (not as good as I hoped), Saturday got wasted poolside at Joolie's and yesterday watched 5 hours of Gilmore Girls (the things we do...) and went to see the Descent to close out the weekend. I didn't get much sleep, so it's kind of nice that I'm off today. Recovery time.

Running on Empty

Longest week ever.

Some major stuff happening at work that involves me working at warp speed from the time I walk in there until the time I roll home at quitting time. The scheduling gods have granted me a 3 day weekend this week for which I am extremely grateful. Just one more day of work and then I'm going to spend the long weekend doing as little as possible.

What is making this week slightly longer than usual is that last weekend I managed to hook up with a gal and I'm eager to spend some more time with her. Work always gets in the way of fun, but you gotta have the paycheck if you want to survive. And with my finances where they are, I have very little in the way of wiggle room for entertainment. I'm anxious to hit up The Descent this weekend, but otherwise I am prepared to lay low and chill in the A/C. The heat has been tough this past week and from what I hear it's hot as hell all over the US.

Saying Goodbye

So my party on Saturday night was fun. About 10 people, some wine, some beer and board games. The pictures I took were for the most part poorly lit or just plain terrible. Although the shot below was a definite keeper.

Joolie fell down my steps which was funny.

Asian John and Callie (a gal from work) joined forces to become the most amazing Pictionary team I have ever seen.

The trio of gals, (Callie, Joolie and Amy) won a tough battle between 3 teams in Trivial Pursuit. I know, I know...how the hell did I lose to a bunch of girls, right? Well, let me explain. I took two teammates on who admitted they didn't know shit before I picked them so essentially I was playing by myself. I wanted to challenge myself. Mistake. Thankfully, Sydney (my other teammate was Jordan's friend Alex) won almost all of our wedges for us keeping us in the game the whole time.

I got really drunk. Jordan got really drunk. And the after party was the icing on the cake...just me and a really cool chick doing adult things. Nice.

Today I completed the good bye process by helping Syd and Jordan load up a UHaul full of stuff. And then I hugged my girl one last time. And shook hands with the guy who must now protect her and love her. And that's a wrap. Sniff, sniff.

Party

Tonight I'm having a party. It's been a couple months since my housewarming wine debacle, but this week's special events warrant another go round. Joolie got enagaed to Eric and Sydney and Jordan are moving to Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday, so it's a Good Luck party I suppose. I even decorated the place.

I took last night off from hitting the bar to conserve my energy and tolerance for tonight. Being drunk a couple nights a week has lost it's luster for my old bag a bones anyway. From the looks of it, I missed a crazy night though. This guy Dale I know here also has a Flickr account and takes his camera EVERYWHERE with him. Anytime I miss something, like Joolie's proposal at Rancid or a random night at the bar, I get to see what happened through his eyes. And last night it looks like his wife Jenn was getting freaky with the ladies. This chick Consi from Statesboro was in town and the photos of her and Jenn making out are sweet. I find both ladies pretty attractive, so I'm digging it at least. Oh well, maybe next time I'll be there in the flesh.

Usually I would blog this on Poison Scooter, but I'm watching it while writing this, so I'll mention it here. Check out Decades Live on VH1 Classics to see Elvis Costello perform with Death Cab for Cutie, Fiona Apple and Billie Joe Armstrong, it's really good. Elvis does some of their tunes with them, and they do his tunes with him. If you are not a fan of Elvis Costello, go kill yourself.

So yeah, it's party time. I'm gonna eat some dinner soon to get a nice base, and then drink my face off. I'm certain tomorrow I'll have a photo essay of the evening to share...

As requested...Dale's Flickr

Joolie and Eric Join Forces

This is not the clearest picture, I'm guessing camera phone quality, but if you look to the far left you can kind of see a tattooed gentleman on his knee in front of a girl wearing a doo rag. That would be Eric asking my best friend Joolie to marry him on stage at the Rancid show last night in Atlanta. Big thanks to Tim Armstrong for letting Eric pull this off.

Joolie, congrats babe. I love you and wish you the best.

UPDATE: A better view of the big event!

Removed, But Soundly Aware

So much is happening in the lives of those I left behind in Philadelphia that I feel compelled to mention it and explain how strange it is to be in the loop, yet so far away. Since moving away a year ago I've had a cousin get married, a sister drop out of school and attempt to deal with her issues, a brother begin to hit the film festival circuit with his first production, another sister graduate college, yet another sister travel to London for a semester, a best friend get engaged to a wonderful girl, another best friend end his relationship and go into a funk, another best friend decide the time was right to move to North Carolina with his family to start anew, a father retire after 30 plus years working for the same company and a friend finally end his troubled marriage. So many things that I'm just not around to be part of...

But I'm very aware of all of it. When I'm not obsessing over how my life is going here in Georgia, I'm thinking about all the changes happening in the lives of those I care about immensely. All of the beginnings and endings, all the highs and lows are reflected upon more than I probably let on. I'm not much of a phone guy, I don't call people as much as I probably should. Email is not a strength for many of the people mentioned above, which sucks because the written word is my forte. Myspace is more trivial than anything else, a comment doesn't do justice sometimes to the sentiment I need to send.

There is a definite bond you always have with people regardless of circumstances of distance. When I found out my buddy Gabe was moving to NC, I thought about two things immediately. On the one hand I'm stoked he will be closer, offer up a nice free vacation spot for me and will hopefully pursue his dreams of opening a restaurant finally. On the other hand, I was sad to see another friend abandon the city we all learned to love so much. And he is leaving behind the last of the mohicans in Jared, a guy who worries too much about too much instead of just trying to enjoy himself. Then again, this is just an impression I get from very infrequent phone calls and emails. Perhaps I am the one worrying about things I shouldn't worry about.

I'm so proud of my siblings pursuits over the past year. Mike and Crystal, the eldest two behind me, accomplished another successful year of marriage and parenting, a feat that is easily overlooked in this day and age. Their children are growing up so quickly and I can only hope that I live on in their memories when the get older, despite my absence. The next generation of siblings are spreading their wings and soaring to great heights without my constant interference and prodding. Daniel will no doubt owe a huge part of whatever success he has in the film world to my brother Mike for his patience and financial support. God knows that if I was there, I would most likely be the one doing what I had to give him the outlet. The success of any man can be measured in his support from those who almost never reap the rewards. Malia is a college graduate, spending her last summer as a child down the shore and will probably allow Daniel's inroads help her along in the pursuit of her future. Tina is traveling abroad as we speak and loving every moment of living in London. As a guy who traveled to the UK often in my early twenties, I can almost taste the excitement she must be feeling at this very moment. Her time there will change her forever, and hopefully give her the boost in maturity she needs to complete her last year of schooling. Candace, well I wish I could be there more for her as she goes through a rough time. So many in my family have tired of her situation, and this no doubt troubles her deeply. Often times she works so hard at being different and the wild child that she doesn't realize that she can be that person and achieve her goals at the same time. I see so much of myself in her and wish I could help her understand all that she doesn't, but I also respect her journey towards self discovery.

This past weekend I missed an engagement party that I so wish I could have attended. Kevin has become another brother of mine over the past 5 years, and I'm so honored to be representing him in his wedding next year to Noele. The two of them are perhaps the most genuine people I've ever encountered and at times, with my behavior, I suspect that I don't deserve them in my life. I'm a foul mouth, obnoxious, perverse asshole at times and they both overlook that more times than not. Having them visit me here in Augusta was a highlight from the past year and will always rank them aces in my book. I understand that not everyone can mark down a date with Augusta in their vacation book, but to visit me before some of my family has is remarkable to me. I know that they both know that although I wasn't there this weekend, I was drinking to their future together from here.

It's been a very strange ride, this relocation thing. I sometimes feel so isolated, so removed from all that is important to me. I've made connections here, but I'm still searching for that reason to make this my home. And it's hard to do that when so much is happening back home. My brother Dan likes to interpret posts like this and make assertions, so let me put a disclaimer on this for him...THIS DOES NOT MEAN I'M READY TO MOVE BACK. But when he does bring up the concept of moving home, I know that it's because he misses me. And that little boost gives me what I need to make it another week, month, year here in pursuit of my own place in the world.

Trivia Night @ Limelight

For once my ragtag group of local associates got motivated to do something on a weekend night besides sit in the Firehouse and wait for a fight to break out. While sitting in the overcast drizzle pool side yesterday the idea was hatched to attend Trivia Night at the Limelight. My boy Jordan, Syd's old man, used to be a regular there and said it was a pretty fun and laid back time. Basically team's can be any size, the only ask 16-20 questions over a two hour period and you can be out of there by 11 PM even if it goes a little long. Sounds pretty alright to me, so I was eager to check it out. And based on my propencity to know something about everything, the rest of the poolside smokers were also eager for me to go.

The plan called for everyone to meet up about 8 PM to acquire a table, space becomes limited if you don't get there somewhat early. Considering this is a bar, getting there early isn't exactly a bad thing. The team we had planned on fielding last night consisted of the following people and their specialities:

Joolie: Celebrity gossip
Mike: Sports
Erika: Obscure Entertainment
Eric: More than you would think he knows (his words)
Jordan: Punk Rock, Reggae, Sports
Me: Music, TV and Film
Sydney: The runner and scribe for the team.

Prior to game time a bit of drama broke out back at the casa de Eric and it forced us to go with a smaller team. Losing Eric could have proven to be costly, but we were still confident about our chances. And Joolie maintained her position as a player, opting to follow through on her committment rather than address some domestic issues with her beau. This turned out to be a very beneficial move considering that one of the questions was related to the movie Gramma's Boy, a movie Joolie recently watched and loved.

The game play throughout the night was exciting and dramatic. We started out of the gate pretty strong, but somewhere towards the middle we began second guessing our answers and made some slips. Jonas Grumby is the Skipper from Gilligan's Island's real character name, a Whale Shark is the largest fish in the sea and Allen Iverson scored 40 points in his first 4 games as a rookie. What saddens me about this run is that I provided the Professor confidently to the group on the Gilligan's Island question, Joolie and I have been watching tons of Sea Life documentaries and had nothing on the Whale Shark question (the team pushed for the embarassing answer of Tuna) and I'm from Philly and told the team that I never heard of AI performing a feat like that. So now I'm feeling pressure to rebound our team and it's not the best feeling in the world.

Right before halftime we regained our composure, I wound up performing in a music quick answer match with 1 member from all teams and came in second earning us 15 much needed points. And we got a couple of gimmie questions, to give us the illusion we were still in the hunt for first. When the game came to an end, all the teams were told how many points they had to wager on the final question, just like Jeopardy. We weren't in the top three much to our dismay. But we had 195 points to wager and we decided to wager them all and go for broke. The question had us line up country of origin for dog species, and originally we needed to get 4 of 6 without being provided anything but the dog breed. We were confident, both Jordan and Mike are into dogs, but then the host decides to give us the 6 countries of origin and we have to get all 6 matches correct to win. Getting them all right turned out to be easy. Way too easy. That's why every team practically got the answer right. We were done. Toast. At the hands of the trivia master. Fucker.

All in all, this was a good time and I'm anxious to work it into the monthly rotation. The Limelight has cheap beer specials during the trivia contest and the food there seemed alright from what I saw on Mike and Erika's plates. Everyone else was happy about the evening as well, so I should be able to get a couple players to return in the future. I give it 6 months before I'm a trivia night legend in this town.

Hi-Five

So I went out to see a movie with a chick last night. Clerks 2 to be specific. I guess you could say this was a date of sorts, I did ask her formally to come with me and I paid for the movie. The movie was funny, the company was delightful, so why then did I end our evening together with a hi-five in the parking lot?

Why?

Because I'm retarded and have zero understanding of the social dynamics of dating. I can only pray that this particular girl doesn't hold my awkward closing move against me and perhaps chalks it up to "nervousness" on my part.

To decompress from this tragic event, I rushed to the Firehouse bar to discuss the goings on with Joolie and Sydney who both informed me that the hi-five is perhaps the worst thing a guy could do at the end of a date. Although Syd seems to think that this particular girl, who she knows, will not hold it against me. I can only hope she is right.

As scary as dating again is, I'm in desperate need to find some companionship since over the last year I've been dealing with long distance, alcoholism and jesus freakdom when it comes to possible relationships. The girl I went out with is relatively normal and appreciates a lot of the same things I do. Not a drunk. No mention of Jesus. Not living in another state. Well, actually she does live in South Carolina, but that's right across the river 10 minutes away. The reality is that maybe this is the start of something more and maybe it isn't. And if it isn't....I will forever blame the "hi-five."