Posted 11:30 PM by MEATHEAD

Today was my birthday and it started out very nicely as my boss brought donuts! Then a couple wonderful women came and sang me happy birthday as my face turned bright red. :) For lunch work friends took me out to El Chico's, fortunatley they didn't say it was my birthday otherwise I would have been wearing a sombraro! Thanks! Why El Chico's? For the the beautiful, cute, sexy, amazing server Lindsay :) She's so incredible. My heart begins to flutter everytime I see her, she has such a glow or aura surrounding her. She's just awesome and I wish she could be mine. She has a ring on but I think it's just to fend off the dumb fucks like me that are infatuated with her. The rest of the work day was long and boring as I was looking forward to dinner with friends. Dinner with friends was fantastic and I feel very lucky to have a good group of friends. I think friendship is the greatest gift to receive and that's what I got tonight. Some people measure wealth in monetary terms but I think wealth goes so beyond plain ole money. I measure wealth in many different facets and friends is one and tonight I felt like the wealthiest person alive. That may sound corny but that's just the way I feel. The only thing missing was somebody to come home with or come home to and snuggle :( Yep... another year older and the deeper the depression of being single gets :) I'm just not very good at meeting new people so it's hard for me to find somebody which I guess is why I'm head over heels for lindsay... Oh well that's just negative nancy coming out to play? :) Thanks to all my friends who came out to celebrate my birthday, good times!

Posted 8:40 PM by MEATHEAD

A new pope was elected or agreed upon today and will be called Pope Benedict XVI. He is of German Decent and for his intellect, spirituality and consistent support for the traditions of the catholic faith. I don't see him being as widely respected or liked as much as Pope John Paul II was but we'll see.

Unfortunately the announcement of a new pope has overshadowed a very dark day in American History. Today marks the 10th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing where a domestic terrorist killed 168 hard working people. One of the convicted murdurers has been executed and the other is serving multiple life sentences but he should be executed as well! This was one of those moments in American History that you remember what you were doing at the time it happened. All I remember is sitting in Hess Grill on UT Campus and watching the news with one of those total disbelief faces. I was 18 at the time, my how time flies, and really just starting to take an interest in the world. I just can't believe that citizens of the United States would want to do something like that, unfortunately that hasn't been the only time that domestic terrorists have struck and probably won't be the last. I just don't understand these type people, this is the best and most opportunistic country on the planet, if you don't like it just leave! Don't blow it up.

On a lighter note Sundown in the City kicks off in Market Square thursday with Steve Winwood! Should be a great show and and great kick off to another jam packed lineup. Click the image link on the side bar for a full schedule.

Posted 11:35 PM by MEATHEAD

Back from my week in Philly for my exchange training class(That's e-mail). With my choice of cities I chose philadelphia cause my good friend Rick is right accross the river in New Jersey. My trip sure as hell didn't start out well at all. My flight was supposed to leave 3:15pm. I had checked flight status before leaving for the airport and saw that it was already delayed till 3:45 cause the plane apparently has had a mechanical issue wherever it was. That delay kept getting longer and longer as I sat in the airport and the plane finally arrived and we FINALLY took off almost 4 hours after the scheduled time! We get to philly and I head to the the baggage claim and wait, and wait, and wait. 1:40 minutes later half the flight from knoxville had received their luggage and the other half had not. Guess which half I was part of? What I didn't tell you was that about 30 minutes before the plane had arrived in knoxville they changed the gate? 3+ hours at one gate and then the decide to change? What the fuck? We figured out that everbody that got to the airport in knoxville and checked bags early seemed to have their luggage lost and everybody else got theirs? So about 10-12 people stood in line to file a claim in philly. By the way this is US Airways Express operated by PSA airlines. They suck ass and Philly airport is not very good either. My hotel was in King of Prussia about 25 miles from the airport. After I filed my claim in disgust I headed out to pick up rental car which was easy as usual and followed my yahoo map directions which have been faithful to me. When I got settled I decided to check out usairways.com and their baggage claim area and I submitted an inquiry, about 10 minutes later I received an e-mail saying that my luggage has been found is awaiting pickup by delivery service. I figure they either put it on the wrong plane knoxville cause of the gate switcharoo or the baggage was delivered to the Wrong baggage claim in Philly. Morons and NOBODY could answer any questions you had in the baggage claim area, nobody, even the simplest question like "Where's our fucking baggage?" Anwyay, it worked out in the end. After I got back from first day of training my luggage was waiting at the front desk of the hotel.

Let me tell you a little about my training class,I won't go into boring detail of the class itself but I will say a little about about conferrence center. It was the Bryn Mawr Conferrence center which was housed the The American College. What a beuatiful area and plentiful of colleges as well. Villanova is just a couple miles away along with St. Joseph's. Many old classic buildings. Anyway, on to the facility. They had snacks gallore during the entire day and switch from breakfast type food in the morning to some nice afternoon snacks, and Everyday was different. Really nice. They cater mostly to meetings and gatherings and things like that. The American College is know for it's financial services if you're interested in becoming financially edumacated.

In the evenings I took a nice trip out to Jersey to see my good friend Rick. We had a great time, good laughs, good food. At the end of the week we went to a phillies game and another good evening! Even though the phillies suck ass and got pounded by the braves. Before arriving at the ballbark we stopped at a imfamous cheese steak joint Tony Luke's! Great Food, Great! We also drove by the meat packing plant where Rocky was filmed pounding meat :) Didn't get a chance to drive by Art museum and those famous steps but maybe next time. Let's no wait so long to see each other again rick! Good times with good friends.

To see some pics from my trip click the Flickr link up top there. By the way Flikr.com is a free photo hosting site and only $25/year for pro account which gets you more bandwidth and more uploads per month. And you can intergrate with bloggers too, haven't figured that part out yet.

-Cya