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Today is my mom’s friend Margaret’s annual cook out. We go every year, and it’s always a blast. Plus, today we have a beautiful day — something we sometimes didn’t have in past years.

This year her son Paul is in with his fiance, which should be pretty cool. Paul and I basically grew up together. Our parents were all best friends, so we would literally see each other at least once a week, if not more. Then, when his mom got a divorce, they moved into the house I am currently living in. Since it’s only a 5 minute walk from my parent’s house, we literally saw each other almost everyday in the summer. But, as in all friendships that include an age difference, we grew apart once interests drifted to other things. He’s now living it up in Boston, and it’s been a good 2 years since I’ve seen him last, let alone talked to him. From what Margaret has conveyed, he’s really anxious to talk to me and meet Jess. Since Jess still kind of has her stomach bug, it’s uncertain if she’ll make it or not, but either way, it’ll be cool to see him again. Although it’ll be weird since we’re both adults now. (chronologically anyway!)

This morning I finally got “Sid Meier’s Pirates!”. I used to play the original Commodore 64 version all the time, and even found a DOS version of it once and played the hell out of it. I’ve been wanting to get the new version they made for some time now, but never was able to. That is, until last night.

It is awesome!

It’s pretty much the same game play as the original which makes it amazing, but it’s updated enough to make it fresh. I played it for an hour after I installed it without even realizing it! Now that’s the sign of a good game!

I also got “Prey” last night. I haven’t gotten any further in the retail version then I did in the demo, so I’m not sure how much better it is. In fact, I’m not even as far as I was in the demo since I got tired last night and decided to go to bed. The only thing I have noticed so far is that it seems to be a wee bit laggier then the demo was. I’m bit sure if it was because I need a reboot after everything I was doing and downloading last night, but who knows. I will probably reboot before I play it again and see if that makes a difference.

But for now, I think I might put in another hour on the high seas before I have to get ready for the cook out. Later…

I was organizing some files this afternoon when I started looking at some of my old phone pics from the last 2 years. It’s truly amazing how much things can change in 2 years. Jess and I have been together now for 2 years, and it hardly seems possible. Hell, she’s been officially living here for over a year now! But I look at those photos, especially the ones before we met, I think back to what it was like living by myself. It was nice, don’t get me wrong. I was able to do what I want when I wanted to. I made very simple meals that would last for days, and laundry was done maybe once a week. My bed was never made, nor was my living room used frequently. I spent almost all my time exclusively in here – my computer room. But, as much as I may miss those times, there was something missing. Jess filled that void.

But also looking back, I realized that I don’t make posts as much as I used to. I think my site traffic has a lot to do with that. You see, back in April, my site saw a HUGE surge in traffic due to my wallpapers. I wen from having about 200 people visit my site a month to literally about 90,000 people! I made so much in 3 months that Google paid for our vacation this year with my Adsense money. Before all of that, I would post quite often about what was ever on my mind. But now that I know a few thousand people a day are reading this stuff, it kinda puts you on the hot seat. I think I felt that I could no longer babble on about stupid topics and such. Hell, even now as my traffic is starting to even out to a semi-steady number, I still feel weird about making stupid posts. But I shouldn’t. This is MY site, and I pay for 100% of it. I shouldn’t feel weird about posting anything on here. If people don’t want to read it, then don’t. Look at the pretty ladies and move on. So…from now on, I’m back to making weird, quirky posts about meaningless, mindless shit.

Things are pretty good here at the Casa de Shafer. Jess is down right now with a bit of a stomach bug, so between laying down and being on the toilet, I really haven’t seen much of her at all today. I took a walk this evening down to my parent’s house to see the kids. They’re getting too big too quickly. Mel’s under the weather with strep throat again, so my parent’s have been watching them. Apparently, I’m Gavin’s new playtoy. When ever I am around, all he wants to do is wrestle. That’s cool, but Uncle Trevor is pushing 30 and gets tired after 20 straight minutes of wrestling. 3 year olds don’t understand that.

Speaking of parents, there’s some funny news on that front. I am now one of their bosses. At the cemetery Associate Board of Directors meeting, I got elected to the main board. So, I am now Secretary/Treasurer of the cemetery. It’s really weird because I have to sign all the checks now for the cemetery. Like on Friday, I had to sign their payroll checks. So, if I don’t sign, they don’t get paid. I think it may be time to negotiate my rent price…

We got home from the “travel portion” of our vacation yesterday. Let me tell you…we had a fantastic time!

We started off on Wednesday afternoon by going to Jess’s mom’s house in Philipsburg. We had dinner with her mom and Jenn that night, and had a nice time. The pan was to go to the beach the next morning, but the New Jersey shut down put a slight kink in our plans. We decided to go to sleep and see what the morning brought.

Well, the morning did not bode well. It was overcast, rainy, and down right cool. Plus, the New Jersey shut down was still in progress. So, we had to come up with a plan B. After a nice morning nap, we decided to make the best of the day and head to the Phildelphia Zoo. At first I have to admit that I was less than enthusiastic about going to the zoo. I don’t have a problem with zoos, but I don’t think I was in that particular mood that day. But, this is what Jess wanted to do so we did it.

I am glad we did. We had an awesome time at the zoo. I think that whatever pre-formed opinion about the zoo that I had were sorely tainted. We had an awesome time walking around checking out all the animals. Plus, with the weather being cool and overcast, it made for the perfect day to walk around. After the zoo closed at 5pm, we decided to go to one of my favorite places, King of Prussia. We walked around the mall for a while, sampled some very expensive, but outstanding tea, and then had a most excellent dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. A note to anyone going there – Evelyn’s Favorite Pasts is the shiz-nit!!

So, we went back to her mom’s house after dinner, and along the way there I called my mom to get the scoop on the shut down. She said that they had reached an agreement, but nothing had officially been announced. So, taking Lady Lucky by the drawers, we planned on staying an extra day to try and make it to the beach.

We woke up early on Friday and found it to be a beautiful day out. The morning paper had said that New Jersey had a budget finally, but nothing was said about its state parks. So, not being ones to always due the prudent thing, we loaded up the car and headed into morning rush hour traffic for the 1 ½ hour drive to the beach. Once again, I am so glad that we did

The weather was near perfect for the beach. It was warm, but not too hot. The water was cold, but not cold enough that you couldn’t go in without important pieces of your anatomy falling off. We were at Sandy Hook beach, which is a nice little beach right across from Manhattan. It was cool because you could clearly see the Manhattan skyline off to our left. To say that we had a most excellent and relaxing day would be an understatement. Plus, for you Kevin Smith fans out there, we were in the Highlands, and drove right through Leonardo to get there. Very cool!

We stayed at the beach until around 5:30pm or so, at which time we headed back to meet Jess’s mom and Jenn for dinner. We all had a nice dinner that night Applebee’s on their patio. A very nice end to a very nice day. We went back to her mom’s house and quickly fell asleep.

In the morning, we woke up and packed our things up and headed home. We were home by noon and unpacked the car. We played with the kittens for a while and even took them outside for the first time. Jess wasn’t feeling too good since she got a wicked sunburn, so we stayed in all night and we watched Deadwood and I put lotion on her. We crashed early and I stayed up getting various online stuff done.

Today is my last official day of vacation and I plan on spending it just laying around and relaxing. I’m going to call my friend Traci later and see if she wants to come over tonight to hang out since she is moving to Los Angeles very soon. All in all, it should be a fun day.

Oh, just one quick note, I posted a ton of pics of the vacation over on the Flickr account, as well as quite a few videos here. Enjoy!!