stripethree » family ties

January

Jeff — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 04:23:59 +0000

I can’t believe it’s the end of the month already. It went something like this…

Happy New Year // Watched the Red Wings beat the Coyotes // Ahhh crap, someone stole my credit card… // Tucson SCCA Meeting // Dodgeball // Got a present for the R // New Autocross Tires! // Autocross in Phoenix // Tucson SCCA Meeting // Dodgeball Tournament // TUS -> IAH -> DCA // Sherlock Holmes // Fantastic Lunch with the all the family in VA // Watched the Terps beat up Longwood // Downtown Silver Spring // RJ Bentley’s College Park, hooray Yuegling! // DCA -> IAH -> TUS // Tried to see how much tire I could stuff under the R32 // Autocross in Tucson // Old Chicago //More R32 parts… // New Season of Dodgeball! // Work Deadlines… // Work Annual Reviews // Hooray refunds from CC disputes! // House Hunting!

Whew.

October first

Jeff — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 03:45:10 +0000

The Maryland trip went by in a blur of party, wedding, bbq, eat, drink, be merry, etc. The wedding was great, as was the after party. What did you learn? Eastern Europe means business when it comes to vodka. It was great to see family again, even if it was only briefly, and I’m glad they all got to meet Summer. The first month of the new job has gone well also; I’m in the loop for the most part, am keeping busy, and am enjoying pretty much every aspect of the work thus far.

The last quarter of oh eight will probably be pretty busy. There is another wedding next month here in Tucson, and one more in Nebraska in November, when I also will meet Summer’s family and friends. I’m definitely looking forward to it. If all goes according to plan, meaning I’m not lazy, I plan to hit seven more autocross events between now and the end of the year. If I do, that will be twenty this year – no wonder I needed tires. I also want to get cracking on a number of the small car projects that have been sitting around for ages.

As cool as the other side of the pillow.

Jeff — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 03:12:02 +0000

As usual of late, watching Maryland basketball is a painstaking experience so the game is on mute and I will glance, or grimace, at the score every once in a while. The apartment is empty, left for me alone for a week and a half, and even thought I’m feeling a tad sick (maybe that pasta was in there longer than I thought), I’m happily relaxed for the first time in a while. As potentially nerve wrecking as a the first meeting with a girlfriend’s family can be, I found it to be quite the opposite. Maybe it was the experience, I mean, well, let’s just say that given past experience nothing really would have surprised me. Maybe it was that I was getting of town for a short stint, to somewhere new, where stresses and worries couldn’t possibly follow all the way to the end of I-66 and I-81. Or maybe it was the car ride to Tennesse, staying awake for the majority of an eleven-hour marathon in order to help keep a beautiful, smiling driver awake and on the road. Possibly. One might think an eleven-hour car ride with you and better half of this relatively young relationship would be potential for well, awkward silence in the very least. Again, I’m wrong, time and time again. Sure, it wasn’t a non-stop banter of everything we didn’t already know about one another, but we had to do something, I mean, someone forgot their CDs and we were left with nothing but a single disc for eleven-hours; one can only take so much John Mayer. So what happened, might you ask? It was so natural and comfortable that it was almost awkward in it’s comfort (thanks to me and my keen observations), if that makes any sense whatsoever. Don’t get me wrong, if I am faced with the grim prospect of having to ride eleven-hours in a Cavalier again and I can only pick one person to come with me, well, I know who it will be. I know, I’m such a nerd. I managed to get lessons in politics, was given a motivation to stop being so intellectually lazy (as I called it) as I have of late, and I think I might have even unconsciously set some of those goals that I thought I was sorely in need of to provide me with some direction. I can only hope that the pilot on this little journey was able to get half as much out of this as I was.

It’s funny, because in many respects, our personalities are very different but they end up balancing so well. You realize it after the fact, through various, not insignificant but at the same time, not overly significant moments that make you smile inexplicably when you remember them.

—

Alright, enough distraction by this poor excuse for basketball. Maryland, you frustrate me with your underachievement.

Anyway, there must be a way to get back into the groove. I sit on this couch for way too much of my time, letting myself think just a little too long about the things that distress me. Money, school, work and the more minor things that in one way or another fall under one of those three realms. It is not that there is even a problem to solve, just that I am again, impatient, and seek too often for an immediate means to an end, even if that end is further off than even I can plan. More carefree, less careless. There’s a rather large difference in those two things to me, if not for you, well, to each his own. It’s acyclic, this little issue of mine, given that I get myself wound up over things, then get wound up about getting wound up. It can be stopped; it must be stopped; ok, now we’re getting slightly overdramatic. At least I can laugh at myself in all this swirl of insanity though right?

Well, I’m going to wrap this up for now, I’m getting distracted by instant message conversations, a crashing instant message application, and the ever increasing drama of this college basketball game. Dammit, and once again it’s way past my ideal bedtime.