Happy New Year!!!

2007 is just a couple hours away... I hope it turns out as well or better than this one. :)

how crazy is this?

I mentioned in my last message how it's soon to be Thanksgiving and the change in the weather and all that...


but COME ON!!! I live in Florida.. you know, the stereotypical "always 70 degrees+" state... right now, we're experiencing a cold front bringing the coldest temperatures for this time of the year the likes which hasn't been seen in 25 years! It is the week of Thanksgiving though.... but I can probably safely say this will be one of the coldest winters on record ever here.

just for something else on the 'crazy' side other than weather.... I went to one of my favorite restaurants today.. a Mongolian BBQ and buffet - and at the end I was given a fortune cookie (along with the check.. :P ) and these fortune cookies have those "Learn Chinese" on the back which has a word in English then the word for it in Chinese? Well, today's word was "Sugar"... in Chinese it's "Tang" --- so that's it! That's what that orange flavored powder actually is... it's "Sugar" :D heh, probably not but it just seemed amusing at the time. :)

In closing - I wish all of my friends and family a very happy Thanksgiving... and hope to hear from everyone after this holiday is over before Christmas comes. :)

how time flies...

hard to believe October is almost over...

the cooler weather is here and my birthday came and went (last week)... now looking forward to Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year...

as for Christmas... sure, there's the gifts and food... but family, friends and loved-ones are more important... which is if anyone asked me besides some minor things (calendar, maybe a new Jags cap) what I wanted... I'd like it if a certain someone... or 2 certain someones were able to share the day with me... granted, they'd be with their own family and friends... but that's not to say spending time with them near the holidays wouldn't suffice... :)

can you feel it?

first off, I know I've not been posting as much as I should *chuckle*, I try to 'moderate' messages to prevent so many of them from scrolling off - but for those who'll want to, they'll read the others.

what I'm referring to in the title is, the year is starting to come to a close. It doesn't feel that we've been through 8 and a half months and yet...

soon the weather will start to get cooler, the nights longer.... Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas will be here sooner than we all realize... (and my birthday will hit soon too... :D )

and soon after that, the new year will be upon us - what will it bring or hold in store for us? Who knows - but best to imagine what we would like to happen next year before this year is out - for soon, next year will be already here. :)

Favorites...

I asked a dear friend what some of her favorite things were (mostly to do but...)

and thought (I know, wayyyyy to early to be thinking. :P ) why not share some of my favorites...

when chilling at home: I like to play on my playstation 2 (handiest device I ever bought - since it can double as both a CD player and a DVD player :) ), I like to get on the net and read e-mails my friends send me, watch tv or movies. (Also on the net, I like going to online gaming sites and play Sudoku) (and football season, I love watching my hometown Jaguars play)

I like hanging around in malls with my friends (furry or non - though I have more of the first than the latter). Ok, I admit it.. I'm a guy but I like to window shop a lot. :) (though mostly towards 'guy' stuff - electronics, games, music, movies...etc but sometimes at clothes or such too and I'm a sucker for pet stores - seeing those cuuuuuute little puppies and kitties at play and giving you those eyes.. :) ) errr..umm.. :) where was I? oh yes, malls - food courts and video arcades are cool to hang out at too.

I like going to the movies (although a bit of a drive (and with the cost of gas as well as tickets to go) I don't go that often).

I like it when it's 'gloomy' - not totally dark because of it being during the day but not totally bright because of cloud cover. I like rainstorms and breezes and looking up on a clear night at the full moon - I think it's a lovely sight. :)

favorite places to eat: CiCi's Pizza (buffet - all you can eat and they can make pizzas especially for you), Chan's (great food at good prices) Chinese, "International Buffet" (ie... mostly chinese) & Mongolian BBQ, Shogun Japanese Steakhouse (though those are for birthdays), Olive Garden, Applebee's.... just about anything, really.. :)

favorite foods: pizza, oriental (kinda obvious, no? :D ), chicken, Subway sandwiches, italian... oh and have to throw in ice cream... :)

there's others, but figured this is enough to start with.. :)

"If I had a million dollars...."

catchy song... but here's a question for you - supposing you just won the state (or multi-state) lottery and after taxes were taken out, you ended up with say $10 mil (I like round numbers. :) )

what would you do with it? and be honest.... :)

since I asked it, I'll give you my honest answer...

I'd set some money aside in the bank (savings account to draw interest, checking account to pay bills).. maybe ... $2 mil ($1 mil in each) - leaves $8 mil
$1 mil to my parents - for they took care of me
$750,000 to my sister and her family and $750,000 to my eldest nephew and his wife
(leaves $5.5 mil)
provided I can find them - to 4 of the dearest friends I could ever ask for: Tammi, Helia, Tiff and Carol... $500,000 each (leaves $3.5 mil)

say about $500,000 for a dream home someplace (not sure where exactly.. :) ) (leaves $3 mil)
maybe a few various charities (would leave about $1 mil or so).. not sure what I'd do with that.. maybe put that in the bank as well... or... hmm.. ah... put it in a savings account so that if I ever have kids, it'll go to them - maybe a college fund or something.

but could possibly live off the interest alone for a year (from the bank of my savings acct) - I don't spend wildly - so I could choose if I wish to keep my present job or leave it. :)

Funny sayings...

most of these are from fortune cookies... but one that my mother put on the dry erase board the other day tickled me...heh.. :)

my folks went off on a day trip and left this message: "See you later (tonight) or else tomorrow" uh... yeah... there's only 2 options there... :P :D

or these "Joy is the feeling of grinning on the inside"....
"When an apple falls from a tree, what kept it up to begin with?" (huh?! :/ )

or the best one I read on a fortune (swear to goodness!)
"Catch on fire with the flame of enthusiasm and people will come from miles around to watch you burn" :D *LOL*

or on the side of a box of medicated swabs : this package contains 8 single dose swabs - you may have to use 5 doses a day to alleviate symptoms....

uh... so like you'd have to buy at least 2 boxes if it takes more than 1 day but with 16 swabs "you get the 3rd day free"... yeah but you still had to buy the 2 boxes to begin with! :P

or this.. Tylenol PM (sleep medication / pain relief) - might cause drowsiness...

NO!!! REALLY!?!?!

just being silly.. :P the way I see it, the world is already a serious enough place... you should have some humor (at least a laugh or 2 a day) mixed in... :)

and if these at least brought a smile to your face, they did their job... :)

a little background info...

some people know me, some don't... others know me from 1 point and went on from there....

but here's a bit of background information on me...

I'm the youngest of 2 kids... my sister is 12 years older than I am... I still wonder if she traumatized our folks to wait so long between children. Also, she was a bit of a tomboy and before I was born, she was climbing a tree and fell, breaking her arm. When the cast was set, it was in such a position that when I was born, it was like a headrest. Anyhow...

I was born October 22, 1970 - yeah I know... long time ago. While I may physically be 35, I still feel like I'm in my 20's somewhere. Anyhow, I was always a short kid (until I hit high school) and constantly teased and picked on, pushed around - I was always the quiet one (ok, shy too) and did well in school.

It was around 1986 or 87 when my parents bought me a Commodore 64 computer and with it eventually a 1200 baud modem (back then, that was very fast - now it's laughably pathetically slow) and went on an online service called Q-Link (which later evolved into...anyone? AOL) anyhow, it was there I went into my first chat room, but this was set up in a sci-fi / furry / fantasy theme called the Red Dragon Inn (or RDI / RyDIn for short). It was in there I met someone and we began spinning stories based on our characters in that chat room.

We wrote these stories back and forth for years, until I lost contact with her in internet land. It was mostly furry based but having some sci-fi thrown in. After Q-Link stopped on the Commodore and the rise of the IBM's started, local BBSes started popping up all over. I was no different and after serving as a co-sysop of one, I started my own: Dark Star 2 (I was co-sysop of Dark Star 1)... I used the alias of Hawke on the BBSes and later remade my BBS into The Hawke Foundation. I met a lot of friends on the BBSes and later a few in person.

Someone had uploaded a story onto one of my message boards on my BBS that dealt with large breasts and tall, amazonic females... on the bottom was the number for the BBS that it came from originally and I would look things up there. Later, when the net came about, I found that same BBS on the net - and more stories.

I later found even more stories and many were BE involved. It was erotic and interesting and after reading some, I thought "Maybe I could write something like this".. and I did. A small handful of stories and some folks seemed to like them. I found out a lot of people wrote / read such stories and felt like I fit in - but this didn't stop me from my original writing passion of furry stories... and later, finding a local furry group (and friends) and going to some furry conventions. I feel very free at such conventions - not having to keep that part of me hidden - mostly because furries get a bad rap.

Anyhow... my alias may have changed over the years, but not me... I laugh about it sometimes as no matter what my alias was, it was always from one of my stories I wrote all those years back to the Q.

I still like furries and BE amongst other things... I don't write that much anymore, and that which I do write is for personal (requested) stories for friends. I've dabbled a little at art (but don't think I'm too good at it) and even painting roses on t-shirts (hand painted, free-hand) and those are something I tend to get proud of.

Most of my friends moved away and so, I get a bit lonesome at times... I love getting e-mail from them to keep in contact... (disappointed a tad when I don't) but I figure maybe this blog of mine might help in that aspect too...

well, if you've read this far - wow! :D many would probably have left after the 2nd paragraph... but there's more to tell, but that will have to be left for another time.... :)

the line blurry?

The line I refer to is that of reality vs fantasy.

I think I live in a purely fantasy world just that every so often (usually when it comes to working) reality rears its head.

take for instance - talking to someone via the internet for the first time. (no cameras... :P ) when you talk to them - isn't everything you are basing your 'vision' of them fantasy?

If I were to say to you that I'm a white male, tall, brown hair, hazel eyes - and be no more descriptive than that, your imagination will start throwing all sorts of ideas from someone from one's height up to say the height of Shaq O'Neil. Or how the hair is? curly? straight? mohawk? :D

Now, if I were more descriptive and said 5'10", medium length hair - ok, more details but yet the imagination takes some control there.

Ok... let's put this scenario - you play your favorite game... maybe say it's Madden football or Gauntlet or D&D.... when you control the character on the screen, you sort of feel you are that character - even a tiny bit.

Here's another... vacation plans (or even simpler... plans for a weekend)... until they arrive, you fantasize about what you're going to do, where to go and so forth.

As I said, I do these things quite often (especially the latter with vacations.. :D ) , sometimes a bit too much - but I know things are fantasy, but it gives me something to strive for. I was asked in high school for the yearbook as a senior - what your motto would be... or some quote to be remembered by... I thought quite a while on it and came up with what I thought was good and true... "Imagination is the key to creation"... ie.. most of the times if you can imagine it - you might have an inkling of making it.

Just idle chit-chat

hmm... where to begin on this one? :D

it's entirely waaaaay to early in the morning to be thinking... then again, when you work the midnight shift as I do, this isn't so early. I've been at the same job / same shift for nearly all of my 13 years at the same company - I can recall how things used to be done and were done correctly, but since then - things slid downhill and made the job more difficult and frustrating.

Anyhow, got through the job in 1 piece and came home to find the power had went out (well, there goes a round of resetting the clocks and tv and vcr and.....) but glad it's back on.

So I went to the blog of a special friend of mine... she knows who she is. :> *blush* I always check there since it seems she posts there more than answering e-mails. I can understand that - she's popular and maybe the blog is an easier way to keep in contact with everyone instead of going through tons of e-mails. :) (I don't have such a problem... once spam is gone, the 20 e-mails or so a day has dwindled down to only about 6 and 5 of those come from various yahoo groups and the 1 odd ball one usually from one of those dating websites - so whenever I get mail from my friends, it gets me rather excited. :) )

Ack! It seems I've rambled on a tanget (I've been known to do this)... ok backtracking... ah yes! I've been trying to keep in contact with my friend but it's not easy. At least when she posts something in her blog, I know she's still alive.. :D (jk jk!) yet it's hard to be personal on a blog because everyone who reads it can read the comments too... so I hope she reads the e-mails I've sent her (or replies to this blog entry via e-mail as well)....

What, me - worry?

This is just a little memo for my friends... you know who you are. *grin*

Yeah, one could call me a 'worry wart' quite often - especially when it comes to friends who live a long ways away and can't get in touch with via phone - and double especially when it comes to periods of bad weather.

For my friends in the North east - a couple weeks ago now - there was a period of very bad rains and flooding. I would hear on the news and read online where people were washed away out of their vehicles - where a section of an interstate in NY was washed out and 2 semi drivers died when their rigs plunged into that sinkhole on the interstate... I mean to SWALLOW 2 SEMIS?! That's one huge hole! So sure, when I don't hear back I tend to worry - with reports of that and people missing?

Then there's my friends south of me - when bad rains pass through that area - especially one who I know is afraid of lightning and storms.... I don't fear storms or lightning or such... what I guess bothers me is the feeling of helplessness of just having to sit and do nothing until I hear back from them and can only wait.

I know many of my friends probably get tired of me worrying about them... but it's how I am.. I care about my friends greatly....

What to say??

never had my own blog before... hmm..

I suppose a greetings and hello is in order.. so... greetings and hello. *LOL* :D

I'll be posting more as I get used to it, but I'm pressed for time as well as weather at the moment.

Once the things I need to take care of are, I'll follow this up with something more... substancial.