Journaling: Weekend Update

Current Music: The Charlie Daniels Band - The Devil Went Down to Georgia
Current Mood: Done-with-project laziness

So it's Monday again, and I'm wondering why the hell weekends go so fast, or maybe just why they're only two days long. Anyway, this past weekend was to be a conglomeration of productive tasks at home, such as changing my oil (and learning how), trying to fix my car door, cleaning/laundry, going in to see if my bike is still on the wall at FreeRide, and other such useful things.


None of the roommates were going to be around because they all went home, so there wouldn't've been much distraction to keep me from getting things done and when I did get around to being social, I'd catch up with some friends I haven't seen in a while. However, just before Jake and Levi left the house on Friday night, Jake realized that everyone was going to be gone and invited me to go home with him. Seeing as I'd never really spent more than a pit-stop at his mom's house, and generally heard tell of it being sweet, I went along to Chambersburg.


The drive out was pretty uneventful and the first night was spent meeting up with Jake's high school friend Adam, who was back on leave from an isolating assignment to an Air Force base in Wyoming. We met at a pub, which must've been the epitome of a good time in C-burg, since there wasn't even a parking space for us when we got there. Of course, I couldn't go into the bar, despite the sign saying no one under 18, rather than 21. Worse, I couldn't even wait in the hall outside, a solid door and bouncer away from the bar itself. Anyway, after that, we went to a Ruby Tuesdays to sit at the bar there so the guys and the two girls from their high school class who also came along could get drinks and I would be able to sit and join the conversation. It was a fun time, though Adam is a bit ridiculous, perhaps whether he's drunk or not.

A rather interesting addition to the festivities was the tragically friendless guy at a small town restaurant bar, desperately trying to engage us in conversation and get people to have more drinks. Not only was this guy a lot of creepy, but he was up there with most pathetic people I've encountered. To be sitting alone with god knows how many drinks in you at a Ruby Tuesdays bar on a Friday night just seems to be indicative of social failure of a most extreme variety.

Anyway, after getting back from the bar, Jake, his sister Megan, and I all chilled out in the kitchen talking about anime and a bit about Jake's Debian OS and the various programs, in particular, game emulators that can be installed along with it. I also read about half of the motorcycle safety handbook for the permit exam we planned to take on Saturday.

The next day we met up with Levi and went to the DMV to take the test and get our motorcycle permits. It was really easy if you'd read the book (which I'd finished that morning), but unfortunately, Levi didn't read it and had a gimpy machine to boot. Worse, PennDOT doesn't accept cash or even credit cards, only checks or money orders, so we called Levi's dad to have him write a check for which we paid him cash equivalent. This seemed a little awkward to me after the test was taken, given that Jake and I were getting the permits, but Levi was not.

After that, we bid Levi farewell and went back to Jake's house, where his brother was home for the weekend from school. Chris joined us for lunch/early dinner at a Chinese buffet with Adam, who was a bit taken aback by his drunken behavior the night before (which continued disasterously after Jake and I left). The rest of the night was spent playing pool and video games with a bit of time spent playing with the Townsley menagerie (2 cats, 2 dogs, and a very fat, unfriendly, and noisy rabbit). Sunday passed in similar fashion until we decided it was too nice to stay inside and we went out to chip golf balls around the yard. Jake then attempted to start his mom's motorscooter just after Levi arrived to head home. We couldn't figure out how it started, since the engine would turn over but not actually ignite, so we just put it away again and headed off.

There was a fueling stop to get various snackfoods for the drive and much anticipation of fun with the coloring book and pad of paper we had with us. I began a little mad-lib-style tale in which I wrote a story, asking for the details as I went. Levi also added to Jake's dirty coloring book of holiday joy. Later, a sweet word-by-word story was told, writing it down as we went. You should eventually be able to read the story on my Red Eye Writing blog.

That pretty well wraps up the tale of my weekend excursion into McCain/Palin territory, which fortunately went down without any poltical confrontations :-P