what the hell happened to 2009? anyone?

oh well. it's been good. way too many adventures that went undocumented. and tons of new friendships that i've really needed. heh.

but yeah. that's basically what i have to say right now. i got tired of my last blog being from january.

i need to start writing more...

Last week, Sabrina was very unhappy with me.

I wasn't entirely sure why, but I had an inkling it was because I told her I'd visit her at work, but never did.

Friday, however, she happened to be working while I was in the mall. So I stopped in to say "hi."

We all know how these converstations go. The usual, "hey, how ya doin. sorry I haven't visited, I've been busy." blah blah blah. Well we ended up at the inevitable, "whatcha doin this weekend?"

Turns out we both had nothing to do, so the decision was made to go see Stillglow play
in Towson.

We went. It was incredible. This band played before stillglow, and they were incredible. I'll put a link to em up here sometime.

Anyways. The band after Stillglow was kind of... well, shitty. So Sabrina offered the suggestion of leaving. This sounded good.

Earlier in the night she had commented about how she'd never had Sonic. I decided this simply would not do. So we agreed to find a Sonic that night before we went home.

I consider myself fairly knowledgeable when it comes to southern PA and the surrounding areas, but this was disproven when we found that there was no Sonic in York, after about an hour of driving. So after Googling a b
it on my phone, I discovered there was one in Lancaster, about an hour and a half away, that closed in about an hour and a half.

Off we go. Driving east to Lancaster in search of some yankee sonic-y goodness, talking all the while about random experiences and listening to Grease soundtrack songs on the radio. (so good)

Upon finding an exit to Lancaster, I figured it was best to get off, lest we drive past Lancaster completely. This exit apparently took us into historic downtown Lancaster, which is not the same as regular downtown Lancaster.

Driving past the Lancaster County Correction Facility gave us our first clue that we were not in the right place. By the way, this place looks like a freaking castle. Ramparts and all. Just... freakin crazy.

So yeah. A few wrong turns and a Google inquiry later, we were back on track. We tried to ignore the clock, hoping that we'd run across our destination before the clock struck 12.

Then, over the asphalt horizon, it comes up. That sign...
If you've never seen this come up over the hill like that, you won't understand. We drove into the driveup slot with literally two minutes and thirty seconds to spare. The timing could not have been more perfect.


Sabrina, our latest Sonic virgin, gets a little shiver up her spine, "Man, I'm really gettin excited now."

Words cannot really express the enthusiasm and excitement I felt at this time. I forgot to unbuckle my seatbelt as I lept out of the car to order, almost making a fool of myself, recovered, and very happily ordered us two medium cherry limeades, two medium tots, and two Sonic bacon cheeseburgers.

And then, it was time. I watched on anxiously as Sabrina took her first bites of the Sonic goodness... And rejoiced with her as she went on and on about how good everything was.

Our drive back to the 301 was contentedly filled with converstation of past relationships, family dinner table stories, and brief encounters with unsavory and slightly rude gas station attendants.


As we finally passed Gettysburg and crossed into the beautiful (and much better paved) Old Line State, Sabrina started to get a little sleepy. I was well past my giddy stage of tiredness and started making 4 year old comments, and she was laughing, and it was overall a good time.

That was pretty much the extent of the adventure.

We really need more of this type of thing, yall.

So we got a new washing machine.

And I did laundry.

New machines always freak me out, because I love to learn them but it scares the crap out of me when I do something wrong.

So I put my two shirts, two pairs of pants, and my hoodie in this new piece of space age machinery, and hit start. Finding the start button amidst the sea of controls was hard enough, but being lost in my amazement of the features it includes, I forgot to put soap in the tray.

So about 3 minutes into the 35 minute cycle, I realized my mistake, and hit the stop button.

Stop on this machine is apparently not stop. It's pause. Go figure, right? I drop the soap in, and hit start again, and it spits more water into the barrel, but only for a few seconds, not the full minute or so that it's supposed to.

Again, I realized my error, and pressed and held the stop button, like you are obviously supposed to to actually stop the devil machine.

Start over...

As I've said, I'm always curious when I get a new machine of some sort. I want to know it's basic workings and how it's cycles work and such. So I decided to sit and watch the load of laundry, to figure out aproximately when it goes from wash to rinse to spin and such.

Yes. I sat and watched all 35 minutes of the cycle. With the last minute remaining being about 4 minutes long in itself. Then it buzzed, telling me it was completely done with everything it was supposed to do.

Not so. There was still soap permeating my 5 articles of clothing, and this simply will not do.

I set it to the rinse/spin cycle, logically thinking that if the brilliant machine forgot to rinse the last 5 minutes like it was supposed to, it would simply add that part of the cycle once I hit start on the rinse/spin cycle.

21 minutes. It's going to take another 21 minutes for the god forsaken washing machine to rinse and spin my clothes. A hoodie, two shirts, and two pairs of pants. 21 minutes.

Go figure.



The moral of the story is, don't trust your brand new, 2009 model space age washing machine to wait until you put the soap in before it starts its stuff.

It will always let you down.

So today was fun.

Eva met me in Frederick and we walked downtown for about 3 hours.

It was cold as balls. But an adventure nonetheless.

I'm lazy so I'm not posting any of the pics right now. Plus I gotta develop some film.

But I'm just gonna say it was a blast. And props to Eva for braving the cold with me.



.... yeah... that's all for now... not really in the mood to write...

Tonite was bro-time.

Dinner at Applebees with my 30% off coupon.

At least, that's all it was supposed to be...

The night started when Dan (Haight), rockin his new stache, decided he needed to relieve himself after a glass of chocolate milk and three cups of coffee, and went to the little boy's room.
Chris (Perry) decided he might need some help, and followed him in.

Now, Chris likes to be close to the men in his life, so he followed Dan into the bathroom stall. This must have alarmed and maybe even slightly frightened Dan, because he jumped over the stall door to get away from Chris. In doing so, he caught his ring finger on the top of the door, and tore the skin from the bottom of his finger. His ring also caught on the door, and tore the rest of the skin up to his knuckle.

They both emerged from the restroom, Dan holding his finger wrapped in a bloody paper towl.

After paying our bill and emerging from the restaraunt, bro hugs were exchanged and Dan tossed me his keys, simply stating, "To the hospital."

We drove to the E.R. and the checkin nurse asked Dan what happened, so he just said he caught his finger on a stall, not wanting to explain that a young boy followed him into the bathroom to do God knows what.

Corey and I waited for the staff to hand us our security passes and ventured into the heart of the hospital, finally finding Dan sitting on a chair while the nurse gave him that "you did what?" look as he finished telling his story.

We three sat and marveled at the brutalness of his wound for scores of minutes before two of the nurses began taking the Electric Ring Cutter out to cut the ring off of Dan's finger, which was beginning to turn blue from his wedding ring cutting off his curculation.

They unpacked the box and began handling the pieces of the tool like two five year olds examining a voodoo set for the first time. Remarks like, "That looks right" and "I think that would work" drifted across the room to our concerned faces.

They finally looked at us, amused and slightly embarrassed, and went to look for a senior nurse who knew slightly more than them.
Nurse Amy came in, face aglow with experience, and explained to them that the professional equpiment that the hospital had spent hundreds of dollars on would not work on Dan's finger, and requested they go find a Dremel tool in one of the doctors' lockers.

They returned with the tool, and Dan realized out loud, "Hey, that's the same tool I use when I'm repairing guitars..."
After debating amongst themselve, the now four nurses, plus Nurse Amy, decided to try with the professional piece of equipment to cut off Dan's ring.

This did not work. So they all looked at the Dremel sitting on the table, then glanced at each other, and began to go to work.

Take 1: Dan's ring started to heat up and burn his finger, so Nurse Amy instructed one of the nurses to get the saline solution.
Take 2: Dan holds the saline saringe and doused the ring to keep it at a comfortable temperature.

Two cuts later, two nurses held clamps on Dan's ring, prying it from his finger.

Gause, hydrogen peroxide, and a touch of vaseline later, Dan's finger is all bandaged up, and Liz can sleep well, knowing her husband still has his finger.


I love how our bro nights can't stay simple.


Credits:
Thank you to Chris for making a nice, boring dinner exciting.
Thanks to Nurse Amy for relieving our fears of Dan losing his finger
Thanks to Dan for being such a good boy and not cursing at all while his finger was being all but ripped from his hand.