i love poker

gambling is addicting. its known for that and i now know how that feels. where you just cant stop. so im hooked on online poker tourneys. my friend ben introduced them to me and i hate and love him for it. its so fun...but most of them are at 2 in the morning so that kinda cuts into valuable sleeping time. and well, theyre free so its not like im actually losing any money...so thats good but also makes it seem all the while more pointless, huh? well, dont hate it till you try it. but actually, dont try it...it will turn into one of those things you were just better off not knowing about. so yeah...im hooked...played in about 5 so far and unfortunately i keep improving which gives me more incentive to keep wasting away my nites. if i was out in 15 minutes every nite then i would probably think..hmm..this isnt fun..and quit. but no...nites like tonite where its 415am and that means i made it to the second break bc you get one every hour...and basically that means im doing good. about 6000 people start out and its down to about 500 and amazingly im still in...hold on, i gotta play...ok so yeah...tonites been a good nite. no lie, my first four hands were pocket aces, queens, kings, ace/queen suited to win me the flush. pretty insane...and unlikely. about an hour in, my chips were dwindling down and i got pocket aces again...to my utter joy the 3rd card and river card were aces as well...four of a kind aces - doesnt get much better than that. what a rush...i love poker.

im a fiesty one

so i went to austin yesterday to see my family, get a free lunch, and drop some stuff off at the house to store so that i dont have to move it. it was a successful trip...lunch was good, ellerey is adorable and berkeley showed me every toy he owned. so then im driving back to college station. for my fellow austinites, i was driving on parmer towards 290. so im driving and this car is in front of me driving under the speed limit - thats no good. so i get behind him hoping he'll speed up so i can get around him...nope...he gets in line with the car next to him so that i cant go anywhere. so thats the beginning of me getting a little annoyed. finally i get around bc the other car slows down enough and the 'jerk' car starts speeding up to like 15 over the speed limit and takes off. ridiculous. i eventually catch up to him bc we come up to a light. hes swerving around people and eventually needs to get back into the left lane to turn...the lane im in. so he swerves in front of me..getting inches from my car...i have slam on my brakes and i just lay on my horn. i was pretty ticked off by then. so hes throwing his arms around kinda giving me the 'what?!' gesture with them. so we turn and eventually i pull up next to him at a light. i look over to see a middle aged man looking down over the tops of his glasses at me and basically giving me death looks. so...i roll down my window bc im ready to have it. he rolls his window down...and im like 'whats your problem??' he says...'youre driving like sh**!!' i yell back...'are you kidding me??!?!' ok this is the best part. old man river evidently wants to get the last word in so he starts to roll his window back up but just before its up he yells, 'yeah...go home!!' i dont even have a reply to that. go home? is that like the all time old man insult i just wasnt aware of? so the light turns and we both drive off. eventually i see him turning off so i make sure to speed up so i can see him off. i make sure to honk obnoxiously and wave real big as i pass. i dont think he really appreciated it. yeah, so i have a little road rage...im an aggressive driver...i dont like old men cussing at me...all morals of this story.

a highly entertaining time at Roadhouse

today i went to lunch at Roadhouse with two guys whom i will leave unnamed for their own protection and to save them from humiliation. let me set the scene up for ya...lots of real cute waitresses, maybe one waiter in the entire restaurant. so the guys have picked up on this and are already scoping the girls out. our waitress, amber, happens to be one of the cuter ones. immediately the guys have decided that amber is hot and have decided that theyre ready for marriage..with amber. one key thing i learned about boys today is that they get extrememly confident when theyre together trying to pick up girls. so one of the guys decides hes going to go after her..start some conversation...hopefully get a number etc. so he asks guy #2 for ideas on what to say. this is when it becomes good, entertaining, pathetic, whatever you wanna refer to it as...so guy #2 starts throwing out these ideas that he thinks are brilliant. some examples being, 'hey we're throwing a bday party later and were wondering if you would wanna come,' and 'hey, we're going to get dessert later and were wondering if you would wanna join us after you get off.' ok so some of them werent terrible. i saved my two favorites for the end though. however before i tell you...one word of advice to guys...if youre with a girl when youre trying to pick a girl up - leave her out of it! so here are the winners...'so, our friend kate here is from hong kong and wants a nose ring and we see that you have one so maybe you could come out with us later and show her the ropes and stuff.' you think thats bad? how bout this one...'our friend kate here is a foreign exchange student and we're throwing a party later to celebrate the chinese new year and wanted to know if you wanted to come.' ok first of all, keep me out of it. second of all, dont turn me into a foreign exchange student.

so you might be wondering what happened with 'hot amber.' well, guy #1 used the dessert line as we were paying the checks and i wouldnt say it went well, but it wasnt a total flop. you could cut the awkwardness with a knife, but she did get guy #1's number so who knows. we'll just wait to see if she gives him a ring. so needless to say, i was completely entertained during lunch and now have a little more insight about the way guys work.

transportation malfunction

taking 10 little littles kids to sky ranch didnt seem to be a terribly hard challenge especially since there were 5 leaders going. so cam, parker, and kristin piled into the minibus with 10 kids and kel and i drove separate in my car. 3 and half hours later when we finally reached sky ranch they were ready to give the kids to us for the rest of the trip and threatened to put the 3 worst kids in my car with us on the way home. maybe it was the fact that the kids yelled, sang, and screamed all the way there? and you would think that after that length of time that they might be tired? oh no, we werent that lucky. they ran around still yelling and dancing and screaming till about 2 in the morning when they finally decided to sleep bc we told them there would be no swimming unless they slept that second. its amazing what a little threatening can do. the next day was great. patins hs kids took over and acted like counselors to the kids so they basically got at least one person to give them personal attention all day long. que, "the cutest little boy in mission" always had a swarm of like 5 people around him fighting to hang out with him bc well...hes that cute. so that was great..they got to do a lot of great stuff - sailing, putt putt, waterslides etc while us leaders got to do the stuff if we wanted or could go off and do whatever we wanted which included going down this amazingly great waterslide they had and tackling a big blow up 'iceberg' in the middle of the lake.

then the ride home...the kids all crashed as we had hoped...maybe making them do laps around a big deck right before we left helped that a bit..and im being dead serious..we timed them and all to make them think it was this fun game. but anyways, getting outta sky ranch was probably the hardest part of the whole trip and we ended up about 30 miles east of sky ranch instead of south before we finally found a main hwy to take us south to tyler. a big thanks to ryan parker for not only driving to start with but for being incredibly patient and kind as we got extremely lost and made u-turn after u-turn. another fun adventure on the way home was when we tried to get on 45. we turned onto the feeder not knowing that we would never ever actually get onto 45 like one would expect. im not exaggerating when i say that we were on the access road for 10 minutes, at least. after like five minutes we started to realize that maybe this was some big trick that we werent in on and so we started looking for places that we could cut thru the grass and sneak onto 45 bc we had lost all hope of actually ever merging on. then it was more of a game...finding someplace that wasnt a ditch and was flat and drivable. i finally spotted one but was too far past it to stop so i used the handy walkie talkie and told ryan to take it. for a split second i felt that i was in one of those movie scenes where theres like 2 people dying and a way out for only one and i was one saying 'just take it, man...do it...its ok..ill make it' bc honestly i wasnt sure if i was ever going to actually drive on 45. i thought i might have to just go all the way home with the view of 45 but not actually be able to drive on it. EVENTUALLY, we reached the next town and was able to cut thru it, get onto another access road and actually get on 45!!!! the next town! who doesnt have a place to merge onto the hwy between two whole towns??? it was incredible. i cant even explain the feeling when we actually got on. kel and i didnt want to get our hopes up at first...we thought it could be another fake feeders so we were like, 'wait for it...wait for it...yesssssss!!!' it was intense. so yeah, we finally got home..with our adventures of getting lost we made it in a record 4 hours...it was awesome. so all in all the trip was a success..we got to see patin and doug and kami so that was real fun, and i think the kids had a blast. would i do it again? if i had some sleeping pills for kids and a navigational system for my car...yes.

summer rut

im in the summer rut. dont act like you dont know what this is. i have a hard enough time being disciplined in reading my Bible etc, but for some reason when I have all this extra time in the summer it just gets worse. every summer it happens without fail. its not that i dont have the time, or that i dont want to necessarily...i do..but i just dont. for as long as i can remember, ive had this struggle...complacency, boredom, doubt...various reasons. this summer ive recognized my walk as more of a circumstantial relationship. thru various situations, experiences, friendships etc. ive truly felt the Lord teaching me, growing me, and convicting me. ive gone to Him in my weakness and frustration for strength, understanding, and joy. so its not that 'distant' road that i sometimes fall into where i just feel so far from the Lord i dont even know what to do. like He's not with me, that its not even worth trying to close that distance. its not like that at all. but thats whats dangerous. the Lord will constantly be using you and teaching you great things and i think i sometimes i allow that aspect of my relationship with Him to be substituted for other fundamental things like reading the Word and seriously studying it. and letting that time mean something...not just reading it to read it so that i can say to myself that i did it. i love application and how the Lord allows me to see how He's working in say, sometimes creative ways. like how opportunities come up at just the right time or a certain person is there right when you need them. but being able to reference scripture and having Biblical knowledge is important too. so yeah...sometimes i feel like my entries are mainly for entertainment value with stories of dumb things ive done or interesting situations ive gotten myself into, but i dont always say whats REALLY goin on. so yeah, maybe some of yall will be able to relate and be comforted to know that you arent alone in your summer rut! but maybe not..either way, i hope it will be worth reading as much as the others.

oh nagle

so the doorbell rings today...first of all the doorbell never rings unless its a) kellys mission kids, or b) someone we dont know. however kels mission kids usually continually ringing the doorbell at 5 second intervals and this wasnt happening so i was pretty sure it must be a stranger. so we open the door and theres an older couple standing there and they say 'hi, we're the nagles!' my initial reaction is to say, oh..youre our crappy landlord...but decided to hold back. im glad we got to make acquaintances since we're moving in like 2 weeks...good timing, nagle. we at least got the pleasure of telling him that our dishwasher has been broken since may. he asked if anything else was wrong with the house. well, lucky you ask now...we could recap the past year with the nonworking bathroom, the anthills in the closets, the broken disposal...but instead we told him no and continued in friendly small talk. lots of fun. i wondered what he enjoyed more when he came into our house...the bed in the living room...the valentines lights hanging up...or his light fixture raised up with a spoon. i will miss 604 welsh...despite ALL the problems...i will miss it.

cracks, bein handy, and the 90s

today i mowed the lawn and well, a good story always goes along with that. im mowing and all of a sudden the lawnmower starts making horribly loud, abrupt, breaking like noises. i start freaking out anticipating the blade flying out at any moment to discombobolate my feet. i think that word i just used is not real however i tend to use it and it just makes sense in my head. so anyways, i release the handle and flip the mower on its side to assess the problem. i come up with a master plan to fix it involving cable ties and pliers. im feeling pretty confident that itll work so i go to heb, get my cable ties and im ready to go. so i securely attach this piece of metal that is flapping in the way and thus causing the really bad noises. so i start the mower again and its works for a short bit and then sure enough my ears are bleeding from the noises that have come back. i flip the mower back over..realize that the cable ties just arent working how i envisioned - im a little disappointed. so then i just decided that the metal piece just wasnt really necessary and bent it, twisted it, tried to cut it, and kicked it until it came off. then i proceeded to mow the rest of the lawn. so technically the lawnmower broke, i 'fixed it', it broke again, and then i 'broke it' but really fixed it. yeah. im so handy.

ok so for dinner kel and i went to taco bell bc its like one of the greatest fast food restaurants ever...fattening maybe, but like i care..it is good. but anyways, we're on the way to tb..driving down our street and kel and i get a show. to our right we spot this guy leanin on the side of his truck. not only do we see him, but we see about 5 inches of his buttcrack. its absolutely ridiculous how much of his butt you can see..like...could he not feel the breeze? the sun? so im in the passenger seat trying not to vomit...kel is dying from laughing so hard. but it gets better. we get to the stop sign and kel says, 'oh, we're gonna make the block and see that again.' are you freaking kidding me? um, no. i literally had to pull the steering wheel the opposite way of her so that she did not turn. we had just witnessed a lot of dirty butt and kel wanted an encore presentation. needless to say, im really starting to question kelly.

one thing we still have in common however is our excitement for i love the 90s. hopefully all of yall are partaking in the vh1 marathon going on this week. its been great reminiscing movies, music, tv shows etc. one complaint however. tv is getting so dirty these days. and by dirty i mean you cant go more than five minutes w/o sexual references. they turn anything, and i mean anything into something scandalous. sometimes its funny, but i think its getting a little outta hand. i mean, ill be honest..i have a tendency to laugh at the dirty stuff even though i know its inappropriate but when its so bad that you cant even really laugh bc it would just be awkward...thats when its too much..i just want tv that i can watch in mixed company w/o feeling uncomfortable - is that too much to ask? just a thought.

lessons 2 & 3

continuing my new segment, 'how to not be an annoying customer at heb'

say youre shopping and youre carrying around one of those little red baskets. when youre checking out, dont just set the red basket on the belt and not unload it. you put the items in your basket, you can take them out again. this is very annoying to the checker when we have to unload your items before scanning them. one because its just annoying, two because we have these things called IPMs...items per minute if you will, meaning how fast we scan your stuff. if our IPMs are not up to a magic number, we get chewed out. i however do have my own system when i encounter this. if you put your basket on the belt this is what i do...i will greet you with a smile while taking out your crushable items like bread etc. then i take the basket by each side...turn and flip...and all of your stuff with fall everywhere. you can try to get angry...but unfortunately my smile gives the misleading idea that im not ticked off at you and by taking out stuff that will get smushed..it shows how much i care. oh, but the expression on peoples faces when they see all their stuff go everywhere...priceless.

next...say youre shopping and you buy a whole cartload of stuff...maybe its busy, not a lot of baggers so maybe youre stuff isnt being bagged immediately. so its piling up at the end of the register and doesnt get bagged until the cashier is done. i personally dont mind bagging your groceries - even if there are a lot of them. however this is what you dont do. dont stand there watching me bag your entire order and make comments like...'geez, yall sure are short-handed...what, you dont have enough baggers today?... unless both of your arms are broken, dont make little comments like that bc im pretty sure you could put your stuff into bags...which leads to another side issue. why do people think that bagging groceries is so challenging? i hear parents tell their kids, 'go start putting the stuff in bags' and by kids i mean grown college students...and their reply will be 'i dont know how' youve got to be kidding me...there isnt like a magic way...put stuff in a bag..and maybe just dont put like detergent with strawberries...it doesnt take a rocket scientist. but anyways back to the whole annoying comment issue. just dont say anything. you can stand there and not help, but just leave your 2 cents out. ok thats all i have for now. i hope this is helpful and that you are all striving to be better customers.

more frequent, less length

i do apologize for the length of some of my entries...its like i said..i forget about my journal..then i remember..and then i have so much to say. so im going to work on that.

i saw anchorman last nite. it was quite funny. made me realize that i havent quite overcome my immature sense of humor. im so easily entertained too...put those two together and i just couldnt stop laughing. but dont let me get your hopes up bc i hate it when that happens - when you go into a movie thinking its going to be the next movie of the year oscar winner and you come out so utterly disappointed and question all of your friends who loved it so much. plus, everyone enjoys different things..some people loved spiderman 2...i did not. so, just go see it for yourself and hopefully youll be a little amused.

i think im going to start a new 'segment' if you will...titled 'how to not be an annoying customer at heb.' there are universal things that are annoying to every checker at heb...many of which innocent customers as yourselves dont even realize. dont worry, i didnt know of these things prior to working at heb either, but i feel it is my responsibility to inform you people seeing as how im 'in the loop.' so if youve done some of the things i discuss its ok bc you didnt know...just try to work on it. today i will start with the issue of 'returns.' now...it seems simple...if you dont want to buy something then dont waste your energy by putting it in your basket. bc you see...when you get up to that checkout line and are like 'yeah...i dont want this'...thats annoying! if you didnt wanna buy it...why did you grab it?? the reason this is annoying is bc when you decide you dont want that item and hand it to your checker...some poor soul has to go put it back for you. its like reverse shopping for us. except its not as easy bc people get some weird, crazy stuff and its not always easy to find it. perhaps im so bitter bc recently ive been scheduled four hour shifts where all i get to do is 'returns.' so i basically walk around the store for four hours putting back weird crap. granted, i can find most of the stuff but its inevitable that i get down to those few items that no one at heb knows the location of and spend 30 minutes walking around with something that im convinced didnt come from our store. so, there it is..lesson one - if you dont want it, dont put it in your basket. im really doing this for your benefit...you dont wanna be that customer that ruins a checkers day, right? stay tuned for more informative lessons...

where do the days go?

i knew it would happen..it was inevitable...i said it from the start. after a couple of weeks i would forget i had this thing...yep. but, lucky for all of you i remembered and so im back. get excited.

its been about a week...a lot has happened. a lot compared to what normally goes on in my monotonous life. this past weekend christian came into town which was real great. we did the normal lay out, eat cookies etc. routine..it was wonderful. then we got to celebrate the fourth together which was a blast. ever heard of rosenberg? well, its this lil town...not really sure where actually...but anyways, we celebrated the holiday there accompanied by bryan and petie. peties dad is in a band called the triumphs who play lots of classic oldies songs and they performed at the rosenberg festival. and that festival was the thing to do in that town for sure...im pretty sure the whole town was there. so we got to hang out there, eat a feast of food that peties mom had brought us, danced a little, and then watched an amazing fireworks show. so amazing that christian decided she wanted a fireworks show at her wedding so that says something. couldnt have asked for a better time!

then we tried to keep in christian in town for as long as we could but finally she had to leave us seeing as how shes a grown up now with a real job...yeah...good for her.

what else...tuesday some people hung out and watched the premiere of the world series of poker...i got bored when they started playing 7 card stud so i went back and forth watching that and the amazing race. theres a guy on the show that went to a&m actually...him and his girlfriend are competing...theyre the team known as 'models.' yeah thats right..and its funny bc my friend harm and i actually referred to him as 'model brandon' when he was here bc we saw him at various parties and at church actually and he was always super trendy and dressed better than us...later we find out that he's actually a model...there ya go.

what else...oh..wed. nite - bodega babe nite. for once its good to be a girl. you get to eat half off if youre a girl so its become a wed nite tradition for me and reba and kel and we recently lured petie in too. oh its so great..and tasty! then we come back home afterwards and watch newlyweds and the ashlee simpson show. both of which provide quality entertainment. the newlyweds bc it never fails that either jessica or her real annoying friend casey say and/or do something so incredibly dumb that i just cant understand it. the ashlee simpson show...man, i dont even know why i watch it. i really cannot stand her. show after show i dislike her even more. maybe its how annoying she is, how dumb she is, how frightfully scary her wailing is that she calls singing. its amazing what fancy technology and expensive equipment can do to tweek someones voice into something decent. hearing ashlee simpson sing on her show is living proof of that. so, i basically love to hate her and thats the only reason i watch...so that i can hate her more i guess?

tonite i played tennis. probably the first time ive played since the tennis tournament and i was kinda scared that i was going to be back at square one again which is a really scary stage for me. but luckily i wasnt as bad as i was fearing. granted i wasnt any good, but i wasnt my worse. and i love tennis...i had forgotten...but i really love playing it. and lemme just say that petie is the next venus or serena williams...shes got some crazy skills that me and bryan just couldnt keep up with. and rielly...well..he thought it would be fun to just try and intentionally hit me...real hard...and was successful once...took me a while to forgive him...but i still love tennis!!!

and then theres felicity. the tv show. anyone ever watch that? it doesnt air anymore, but it used to and i purchased the first series which is freshman year. oh i love felicity. its like the story of my life. i wont go into reasons why, but really...i can relate to felicity a lot and sometimes i think shes living my life. and it sounds so cliche too...ive become that ridiculous girl thats like bonding with the characters on a tv show...yeah...oh well, im not taking it back. me and felicity...same person. anyways, thats a good waste of my time sometimes too. besides of course the ellen show at 3 everyday that i still watch if im home. its just great, ok? well i think thats a sufficient update. maybe a little too much but oh well...you never know..i might forget about this again and not come back for a week...we'll see...