Where to begin? I guess, first, I should mention that I'm reaching out to you all from a two-story Starbucks in Seattle, WA. Not three days after I returned home from my DC/NYC vacation, I boarded a plane for a four-hour flight to the great northwest.

When I was sitting in the terminal waiting for my flight, I noticed a particularly ill-behaved toddler screaming his head off. I just knew he would be sitting near me. And I was right. This little fucker was directly across the aisle from me ... and he did not shut the fuck up the entire flight. He was screaming for the sake of screaming. Now here's what really bothers me. His mother catches my glare, smiles, chuckles, shakes her head ... like she's expecting me to be the same, like, "Eh! What'reyagonnado?!" and ruffle the kid's hair. I'll tell you what you should do. You should smack that kid so fucking hard that the next time he ever thinks about screaming on a crowded airplane, the resulting Pavlovian headache is crippling enough to quell that impulse. Good lord, people, it's bad enough you decided to breed, then decided to do a poor job in raising your children, but at least have the foresight not to bring them in public. No one thinks your kid is cute but you.

Except my nieces. They're all adorable.

So Seattle kinda sucks. The weather is pretty kickass, but I'm bored out of my gourd. I don't know anyone here and my room doesn't have internet access until I move hotels on Thursday. I really just want to be home, but that won't happen until September 1. Somebody call the whambulance.

My trip to DC was spectacular. Daniel and I got along famously, something that had mildly concerned me before our departure. While we spend nearly every hour outside of school and work together, that doesn't always give you a good indication of how you'll handle 24/7 with a person. But it was not even an issue. We spent every night in DC gay bar hopping. We got to meet up with Mr. Kenderdine and my dear friend JonSteed. DC is a pretty cool city, but it's missing that essential pretentious attitude that makes going out really fun. Nobody dresses up. They wear flip-flops and cameo shorts and sleeveless Ts out the bar. What's the fun in that? Daniel and I had to get all fancied up and go out with our sunglasses on to show em how we do. Daniel's dad had a nice apartment in Dupont Circle with a huge terrace. The terrace was surrounded on three sides by a tall brick wall, and the fourth side was a rod iron fence. So every night when we were smashed and getting home, we'd climb the rod iron fence to sit on top of the brick wall and smoke cigarettes. Every single night one of us got hurt. Daniel tore his foot open. I have a puncture wound on each knee. You'd think we would learn our lesson after a few nights, but we managed to avoid any lessons learned.

New York was a b-last. I still don't like the city, but I definitely like the time I had there. We stayed with Daniel's friend David (so bear with me during this story, I'm not speaking in the third person). David showed us as much as he could in the short weekend we were there. We went to some good bars, but they were all so fucking packed. I can't imagine paying 8 times as much for an apartment 1/4 the size just to spend every night packed into bars so tightly that it's hard to even drink. And if you go to New York, make sure you take a lot of cash. IF places even took credit cards, they all had minimums. 5 dollars at most stores, 50 at some bars, and one bar even said they wouldn't swipe my card more than once when I told them to just run it. I suppose if you're marking up alcohol 800% customer service isn't at the forefront of your concerns. But like I said, we still managed to have a blast. One day we went on a Project Runway tour of the city. We went to Bryant Park, and Parsons New School for Design, and the Red Lobster that Santino made fun of Tim Gunn and Andre about. We went to Mood, the fabric store they always shop at and had a fabric scavenger hunt. We managed to find 3 of the fabrics that they've used on the show this season. Too exciting. We also went to the flagship Macy's and they had a window display with all of the winning outfits so far this season. It was fun to look at them up close. By far one of my favorite parts of the vacation. The other day we just kind of strolled around Central Park. Thank you thank you thank you to our most gracious host and newest Sidesho-Viewer, David. Can't wait to see you again soon!

We did so much walking on our trip. I really felt like my legs got a good workout, since they haven't had any recently. We also took a train from DC to NYC. That was a first for me. I like the train. The train is kind of like what I assume airplanes would be like if there weren't assholes trying to blow them up all the time. You just kind of get on where you need to get on and then get off when you need to get off. It just made a lot of sense to me.

I have to apologize for the length of this blog. I had a lot to say and nothing else to do in this fucking city. I'm bored. If anybody knows somebody who lives in Seattle, or knows somebody who knows somebody PLEASE get in contact with me. I would kill for some company. Alright, I'll update more when I have internet in my room. Later, bitches.

Any of you that have been to my residence in the past seven or so years have probably had the good fortune of witnessing the most beautiful coffee table ever created. It started out as a normal coffee table donated to my dorm room by a friend of my mother. One freshman year later and the facade was horribly damaged and the finish nearly entirely removed by spilt Everclear. I knew something had to be done, so I enlisted the help of my very artistic and talented friend, JennyCole, and soon ended up with this...

It's beautiful. It's creative. I love it. HOWever, it does not exactly fit in with the color palatte of my apartment. I had considered the whole space/ocean/mountain/sky theme for my living room, but instead went with tan and red. Considering Ryan Short and I are someday going to open up Tan & Red Designs together, it was a no-brainer. Anyway, the table holds a lot of sentimental value to me because Jenny and I did it together so long ago, so I knew I couldn't get rid of it. I thought maybe I could cut the legs off and use it as a wall hanging, but again, not really in keeping with my concept of "vintage Parisian." What to do? What to do indeed.

I've been using the table in my bedroom ever since the redesign. It sits directly behind the head of my bed and serves to hold my many extra pillows. You never know when you need to switch in the middle of the night to a softer or firmer or more Tempur-pedic pillow. It's a pillow table. A pillow-table? Solution! I present to each of you, the new and improved pillow-top coffee table. I used three blocks of foam to create each section and then covered the whole thing in faux leather vinyl stuff. After I stapled it down, I put a row of brass tacks between each cushion and then a border of brass tacks around the edge. I didn't think it would turn out showcase quality, but I was pleasantly surprised at how well I did. It isn't perfect, but it's perfect for me. I think it looks so cool. So fashion forward. (Sorry, I just got done watching Project Runway.) It was a fun little project, and one that I have a bruised thumb and several bleeding cuts to show for. You know me, my art hurts me so. I had to offer it up for your approval. As always, I'll entertain your comments as long as your comments entertain me.

My trip to Washington, D.C. and New York City is fast approaching. If you'd like to hang out be sure to let me know. I've already gotten word from JonSteed and Mr. Kenderdine. Hopefully, I'll be able to hook up with Topher in NYC. As an added bonus, the Monday after I get home from vacation, I will be jetting off to Seattle! You believe that? So if anybody is in the northwest, also let me know. Mr. Ryan Cloutier has already expressed an interest, but I should have puh-lenty of time up there, so I'd love some company. g*d, I'm such a jetsetter. I think it's bed time. Czech you sluts later!

Today was a productive day. I probably haven't mentioned my co-worker, Trey, in my blog as much as I have in real life. Trey is awesome. He's an old rednek with no formal education who is a jack of all trades. He's helping to train me at work. He talks ... really ... ... ... slow. It's awesome. He also happens to have pi memorized to 1250 digits. Today I made an Excel spreadsheet that would check him 10 digits at a time, and I sat and watched him successfully enter 500 digits in a row before I finally decided that I really wanted to go home. I told him I would memorize it out farther than him ... I'm up to 32 digits now. Don't believe me? 3.14159265358979323846264338327950, bitches. If you would like to race me on memorizing it, download my pi Excel sheet here.

This weekend was too much fun. Friday, I went on my lunch break at work ... and then decided that I really didn't want to go back. So at 1:00, I hit the road for College Station. Technically when my boss said, "Leave whenever you need to," I think he meant anywhere from 4:00 to 4:30. But you just can't say something like that to me and not expect me to take full advantage of it. I got into College Station around 4:00 and went straight to Hobby Lobby to visit Marshall while he worked. After a little bit of that I met up with Allison, her friend Brian (who is fab squared), and JonSteed for some evening cocktails. I picked up the tab because I have money and I spend it recklessly.

Halo on a Friday night, man I miss that. They were having some wicked drink specials, so after the nine of us drinking on my tab finished up, the total was only $50. Allison brought her friend Brian from earlier in the evening, and he in turn brought his friend James, who tried to open a tab behind my back, but I got it transfered to me. JonSteed came against his wishes because I promised him free drinks. Marshall and I got buck wild. Raul made a grand appearance, and Justin made his presence known. We definitely got our 50 bucks worth, drinking and dancing the night away. But you know me, my faithful Sidesho-Viewers. That's just not reckless enough for me. So I drunkenly vowed that on Saturday night, I would have a $200 bar tab. Everyone thought I was kidding ....

The next night when we went out, Marshall jokingly referred to my 200 dollar proclamation, to which I replied, "Let's do it." More drinking, more fun. Despite our best efforts, the total came to $85. In my defense, James was bartending, and being the good friend he is, he told me that he had "hooked me up BIG TIME." So jebus knows how much we actually managed to spend. It was way too much fun though. After the bar, Dick was having some people over to go swimming at his apartment. Raul and I swung by Marshalls for the half bottle of raspberry vodka I had purchased the day before and managed to drink that while wading in our underwear until 4am. It was crazy, crazy drunken fun. The kind of fun business professional people do not have. I can't wait to do it again soon.

Speaking of segues, I think I will do it again soon. I got a call from Chris, the boy who goes to Yale, for those of you who are bad with names. He was in Plano last night and he got to come by my house and then I gave him the full Plano experience by going to chit chat outside Starbucks with overpriced coffee and chain smoking. He is in CS through August and I will most certainly come back sooner than planned to visit him again before he whisks away back to the east coast. It was really good to get to see him and have a chance to sit down and talk about everything that's gone on in about the last seven months. Another reason I need to get back to CS in the near future is that I really need a haircut. I'm not backing out on my decision to never cut my hair again, but my last hair cut by the fat bitch at Toni & Guy was so bad that it's just not growing out right. So I'm going to get Hannah to fix it for the long haul.

The final piece of news is that I got to swing by Humble on Saturday from about 1:00 to 7:00. I went to see my 2 week old niece, Kaylyn. That was too much fun. She was sooo small and so cute. I got her some socks, a blanket and some shoes. I told you all how much I love shoes on babies, right? G*d, that cracks me up. They are too big for her at the moment, but I can't wait until she grows into them. She was so funny. She doesn't really have control of her arms or legs yet. She kind of flails around without rhyme or reason any time she gets upset. So when she yawns and her pacifier (otherwise known by its brand name, Soothie) falls out of her mouth, it is a challenge to get it back in her mouth before the screaming starts. Every time you get close, she knocks you out of the way. So my brother does this thing where he grabs her tiny hands and kind of holds them to her chest and says, "Let's get organized!" It was way too funny. Visiting Kaylyn will definitely have to be a priority in the months and years to come. I was thinking about going out of town for my 3 day weekend over Labor Day, but Stephen, Rachel and Kaylyn are coming to Dallas to visit, so I'm modoubly staying for that. Plus, I think Ryan Short is having a party, so all you College Station boys should come up for that. Start making plans.

This blog is ridiculously long, but I had a lot to say, so I hope you enjoyed reading it. My call to action is for each of you to post your thoughts and experiences with pi, big bar tabs, and tiny babies. Until then, peace, my friends. And good night.

I hate working. I mean, while I'm there, it's not so bad. Sometimes the hours absolutely drag by and sometimes I'm done before I realized it was getting close to quittin' time. I have another piece of flair the Nazi's make me wear. This one's a cell phone. My whole life I have hated cell phones clipped to belts more than I hate Jessica Simpson (and her little sister now too). But, in keeping with the theme of turning myself into all the things I've always despised, I wear it obligingly. It's way too big to keep in my pocket because its one of those Nextel walkie-talkie things -- which I also hate.

Some other things that suck, and then we'll move on to more fun topics. We're getting this etiquette class three times this week and basically all they needed to do was hand out a piece of paper saying, "David you don't belong here." They presented themselves as this ultra-hip, young cultured company, but now they're impressing on us the need to look like mission control engineers from the 1960's. Fuck that. I'm not taking out my earrings. That's ridiculous. All I do all day is sit in a cubicle. And they keep saying things like, "If you're not married yet, when you do get married you'll want to eat with proper etiquette. And guys especially when you take a girl out." I know that's petty, but they make comments like these all day long constantly ... everyone does. It would be nice to not feel alienated for like five minutes.

So the fun topics I promised: This weekend, my first weekend in Dallas, could not have been better. Ryan Short was having a party Saturday night, and I was on the ol' invite list. I went over to his house early so I could get ready to go out without the criticism of the matriarch. I helped him put lids on the obscene amount of jello shots and then people started showing up. JonSteed from College Station just happened to be in town and called me to see if I was doing anything, so I invited him to join me. I was grateful for him being there since I only knew a few cats and it was a little intimidating. There were like 70 queers sardined into Ryan Short's apartment. It was great. But it did get a little stuffy and hot (I should take a look at his HVAC system) so we moved the party to the bars. Starting off at JR's, JonSteed and I proceed to drink Pink Cape Cods like they were goin out of style. Then we stumbled over to the Village with a couple strangers and danced and drank some more. Neither of us remember the rest of the night clearly but I think it ended with us buying a shot and not having enough money, so we left.

Not much else of note happened, but hazy stumblings and drunken ramblings with people we did not know. We made it back to Ryan's where he and his brother were waiting for us to take them to ... where else? ... Whataburger! Fantastic. I spent the night at Ryan's cause I'm a lush and my mother didn't want me to drive home if I'd been drinking. I was happy to oblige. The next day we woke up and went to visit Ryan Short's friend, Greg, who lives in Addison Circle, where Ryan thought I might like to live. He was RIGHT! I fell in love. That's totally where I'm moving when I can afford it, which should be shortly. My first paycheck comes tomorrow -- can't fuckin wait. After we ate lunch and toured Greg's apartment we went and met up with Brent to go to a movie. So Ryan, Greg, Brent and I all rode to Stonebriar and met up with Chris Jones to see Stepford Wives, which I did not want to see, but I did want to meet new friends so I went. IT SUCKED. Real bad. Don't see it. Anyway, I just wanted to graciously thank Ryan, Greg, Brent and Chris for such a great time.

So that is what has been going on. Once I move out of my parent's house and get my own dedicated internet connection, I'll probably be more prone to get back into the updating swing of things, but as it is, I have precious little time to plug in and I don't always want to spend it narrating the past. But do keep checking back and emailing me and stuff, all the contact with my former life is a good thing. Peace out, have nots.

The room was a haze, her steps heavy with drunken determination. She stood at the doorway and gazed out, seeing double. The rain fell in sheets outside, and not wanting to endure the downpour, she retreated back into the club. She looked left to read a poster, but abandoned such hope as the words melted together. She looked right with disgust at the lowly bartenders shooting disapproving leers. She should have been looking down, because unbeknownst to her, the floor ended in a cascade of stairs she had walked up and down a hundred times before.

The floor jumped up from out of nowhere, knocking her sideways as her purse regurgitated its belongings. She looked up to notice lights on the far wall, and soon realized she had hit the floor. Dazed, she felt herself lift up under the close watch of two of her friends. And then, it was time to leave.

Okay, enough with the narrative stylings of your favorite Sidesho attraction. I just promised Leslie that I would find a creative spin on the fact that she ate it hardcore in the middle of Boyz Cellar. That was the only way I could procure permission to even tell the story. Those of you who know her won't be surprised ... those of you who have met her won't be surprised ... those of you who know of her won't be surprised ... those of you who read this site a lot won't be surprised ... but everyone else will be fucking floored!

We had to leave early that night, but luckily our knight in shining armor, Brandon, was there to save the day and drive us back to Round Rock so we didn't have to wait in the rain for a taxi. "We" was Leslie, Jon Steed and yours truly. It was still relatively early and the rest of us were relatively sober so Jon and I sat up drinking beers and discussing politics. Lesbie Ann joined us for a spell but retired before we did. The next day we woke up and had lunch and then I hit the road for Brandon's house.

He fumbled about for a bit, not wanting to extend the good bye, just delay it. A furtive look about at his surroundings and he fixated on her. He was leaving her, and didn't know when he would see her again. A moment. Hugs and pleasantries exchanged, he strode to the car and waved a final time.

Ehh, I had to give my embarassing moment some granduer as well. It was then that our everyman realized he'd locked his fucking keys in his car. What happened was I put Tuna in the car in his Taco Bell traveling cup, but didn't want him to swelter while I was saying goodbye to Leslie so I reached in and cranked on the AC and then shut the door ... but not before remembering to lock it. So I stood outside of Leslie's for like 30 minutes as my gas ran out for 2 bucks a fucking gallon. Luckily, I had turned on the AC (although that was the problem in the first place) because Tuna would have died. So I remained calm.

I finally got on the road and made it to Brandon's house, and we went to the mall. I got to see where he works. Then we got all cute and headed out to the Pride Parade. I had no idea that it was pride, but whatever, I just go with the flow. Ran into my old pal Craig and my older pals Rossi and Brad, so that was cool. Danced the night away, but didn't get drunk. Today I drove back to Dallas amidst throngs of biking enthusiasts and it took almost 5 hours. Now its pouring rain and my first day of work is tomorrow. I'm nervous and should be in bed, but I wanted to fill everyone in on the last weekend of freedom I will ever experience ... well, until I get fired for going to work drunk. But hopefully that won't be for many days.

Wish me luck, I'm sure I'll update tomorrow with hilarious antics from the office ... Since now I have my degree, and I do engineering in my engineering office. Bah. Laaaaaaaaate you have nots.

Today was just a rip roaring good time on campus. I had my weekly senior project meeting, which went flawlessly as always, and then met up with some of my friends who had gathered at the Straight Pride rally over by Rudder Fountain. Damned free speech areas. Has anyone noticed that not once have the free speech areas on campus been used to promote liberal, democratic, tolerant, or educated viewpoints? It's always a bunch of dumb fucking redneks abusing the power.

So we went and had a discussion with them all trying to inform them that every day on campus is Straight Pride day and to try and belittle Gay Awareness Week, no matter how good your intentions may be, will be misinterpreted by the less educated (i.e. most dangerous) members of our little society. We didn't have long to talk to them because they were closing down camp for the day, but promised they would be back tomorrow if we wanted to talk to them some more. So I think we're going to get a big group of sane people together, just to show that on this campus, for every idiot who thinks Straight Pride is funny, there are two people who realize the implications.

You might think we were out of fun after these idiots cleared out, but no, OH NO, our fun had just begun. Our beloved campus evangelist, the one and only, Mr. Tom Short was back! Hoorah! Our friend Jon Steed, like the leader of Aggie Democrats, and a Jew, no less, had quite a time talking to Mr. Short. I don't like to talk to him because I know that he is an accomplished speaker and the last time I talked to him he turned my words back around on me. I prefer to prey on his little minions that he positions throughout the crowds to talk to you as you bad mouth him under your breath. I got sucked into an argument when I overheard some guy proclaiming that g*d was obviously real ... just look at the tree ... how could you possibly explain the tree without g*d? So I pointed out that it could be explained with Horticulture, a subject that is taught at this very university! Shazam!

Then he tried to tell me that faith was logic. To which I countered that faith is the opposite of logic, at which point, a guy who is in my major, and an active BUc (Brother Under christ) jumped in. We talked for a long time much to the amusement of my friends who were sitting near by. I've never really been observed in one of these arguments even though I tend to have them WAY more often than I'd like. But they were all laughing because, apparently, I show no emotion ... big shocker there, I'm totally monotone all the time. But they said that the other guy would get worked up and I wouldn't give a shit, which is basically true. We had to stop arguing though because he wanted to go on forever when it was apparent to me that our beliefs were fundamentally opposite, and no common ground could be met. For every christian bullshit line he pulled out, I put it back on him. He said he was trying to spread g*d's word to help me, I told him I was trying to convince him otherwise to help him.

All in all it was the same argument I always have with these people. I always think that it must be such a treat for them to get to talk to me, and such a drag for me to talk to them. Because I formed my own opinions on everything and they're good and funny and logical, whereas they all read the same stupid fairytale book for their opinions, so I know exactly what they're going to say next. Fucking automatons. My favorite part of the discussion was when I informed him, "There is no heaven. There is no hell. There is no g*d. There is no jebus. There is no salvation. There is no sin. You've got to stop thinking in terms like that." Lovely, just lovely. I love myself.

I am God.

I took a picture of my brown hair but I don't like the self portrait thing with my camera, so you all have to wait until I get someone else to take my pictures before you can see it. I am totally styling it in 70's retro style, and everyone hates it but me. But it completely cracks me up so I'll probably keep it up for a while. In the mean time, if you'd like to meet us out at Rudder Fountain tomorrow to speak more with the bigots, do just that. We'd love to have you. Laaaaaaaaaate.