I am not a girl...

...and yet my emotions were on a roller coaster of sorts the past few weeks anyway. Not knowing whether or not my fiancee could come to my best friends wedding, then finding out she couldn't camp, but probably could come to the wedding. Then she couldn't because her NEW JOB!!! was going to need her to go to a conference. Then they couldn't get her into the conference. Then her parents thought it'd be best if she spent the weekend packing and getting things organized because the looming move is fast-approaching. I don't know how much more of that kind of torture I could have taken. Haha, fortunately our love remains strong and we can work through all this emotional up and downs. If work will let me, I'm going to try to head up her direction at the beginning of August.

Emily gets married in two days! I wish her and Luke many years of happiness and companionship. My trills aren't perfect, but they're as good as they are going to get, hence my facebook status of this afternoon. I do feel prepared. I, unfortunately, won't get to dance with my fiancee, but...I should still have fun as half our church is invited to the wedding!

My friends and family returned home from New Orleans and the National Youth Gathering today so I got to hang out with Ruth and family and Laura during the day today.

I think I've made all my points and am sleepy...time for bed.

Drifting

I've decided that I don't need to refer to friends as friends and instead can refer to them by names. With that in mind, Bill scored some tickets to the Lake County Speedway through his work for Saturday night and Emily and I made a venture there with him. Riding in his large diesel truck is quite enjoyable in and of itself, but the show was even better. I can't stand watching NASCAR at all, but perhaps it is because I have never been to a live one. The track we went to is the smallest one with any affiliation to NASCAR and the races were pretty funny and the Figure 8 features produced many moments of, "Holy cow, they're gonna...whew, that was close!" The highlight of the night and the reason I went with Bill, however, was to see the halftime show. Our friend Chad was out in his car with the rest of Drift Cleveland and they were, yep, you guessed it, drifting. If you've never seen drifting I'm sure you can find tons of videos of it on Youtube, but basically the drivers attempt to make their cars do on dry pavement what the rest of us fear doing on ice and snow. They intentionally put their cars into sweet looking spins.

I am also happy to report that I had a few Long Islands after the show at The Winking Lizard. It had been far too long since the last time I'd consumed perhaps my favorite drink. I've made several stops over at that bar in the past week or so, and it feels good.

In other news, after an early flurry of trips disc golfing, I have not yet made it out since my birthday to try out my Champion Beast driver. The temperature and general business of those that would go with me and myself have prevented such an outing from occurring. With Emily's wedding this weekend and Jeremiah gone for the week to the LCMS National Youth Gathering in New Orleans, I fear that this outing may have to wait until I return home from the Smoky Mountains and family vacation sometime late next week.

Useless Statistic of the Day? I know I missed putting on into the last post.
One month after Michael Jackson passed away, his Facebook Page has become the first (by a big margin) to reach 10 million fans.
This fact is not all that surprising, I suppose, but it's all I have for today.

Party in the Park

I went to Painesville's Party in the Park last night and heard Colin Dussalt's Blues Project perform. I was very impressed. The beer and ribs were also enjoyable. The atmosphere of a town square filled by people at a festival listening to live music is just fun to be a part of. Particularly if you actually enjoy said music. It's been fun to hang out with my friend the past few days as we are now within a week to her wedding. I've made my first trip up to the lake to swim with another friend (her younger brother) and my nephew as well. Today is the first day in 3 that I have not been in a bit of pain from sunburn and this is refreshing. Tonight, I plan on watching yet another friend drift at the halftime show of a race at the local track. It should be a good time. All in all, the past week has been a great week, especially with the news of Kristin getting a job (only part of which makes me sad being the location). Now if only I could also find a job, things would be golden. I took another step in that direction filling out the paperwork for my Ohio license on Thursday.

I just realized that this post has resumed my traditional stream of consciousness typing and I apologize for no clear structural guidelines, such as paragraphs primarily. My mind is flitting from one thing to the next as I just returned home from work and need to find food before long in preparation for the races.

Hákarl

Hákarl ranks up there as one of the most disgusting foods I have ever eaten. I tried it last night because when you are offered to taste one of the worst foods known to man, you have to man up and eat. My best friend is in town for her wedding in two weeks and I was over to chat and helped a bit with wedding stuff (which on a side note made me wish it was my wedding I was helping with). Her parents just returned from Iceland a week or so ago and Iceland is home to a poisonous shark which is a disgusting delicacy. They picked up a frozen package in the airport so that all of us here in Ohio could suffer with them.

Hákarl is Icelandic for fermented shark. The traditional method for preparation according to Wikipedia is to behead a basking shark and then bury it in the ground for 5-6 weeks, allowing the gravel and dirt to press down on the fish, forcing out the poisonous liquids. After that time, it is removed from the ground and cut into strips which are then hung out to dry for several months. Later, the meat is covered in a brown crusty substance which is peeled off prior to cutting into smaller pieces to be eaten. Consumption of the Hákarl proves hardiness and therefore many tourists seem to be tricked into tasting a truly disgusting dish.

Fortunately, my friend's family also had prepared a delicious jambalaya which made up for the awful putrid shark. The jambalaya also spurred me on to purchase a "fiery" hot sauce from a local hot sauce store which I plan on adding to the chicken I now must prepare.

Useless Stat of the Day omitted due to a long useless explanation of a foreign delicacy.

Macy's trip

This is a follow-up post on one of my Useless Stat of the Day entries.

I went to Macy's yesterday to exchange a shirt my brother had bought me for my birthday. I got a new blue polo and 3 pairs of nice socks in place of the one shirt in case you were wondering. However, it is important to note that even I fell into the trap yesterday. I walked into Macy's, a department store, and IMMEDIATELY turned to the right! I guess I'm just another statistic. How pathetic has my life become? Haha, I actually, as you might expect, don't feel bad about this at all. The fastest way to the Men's Department was a turn to the right, but I couldn't help but notice that I was just doing what was expected, no excitement from me.

As you may have gathered from Facebook, a good memory, or the above paragraph, my birthday has just passed. It turned out to be a great day with quite a few meaningful, fun, and exciting gifts. Some others were useful, and a few added up to hilarious laughs. My sister and her family came down the street and my parents helped me celebrate as well. We played croquet, cornhole, and hillbilly golf and ate steak, baked potatoes, and corn for dinner...all in all, a near perfect day.

The fourth was a bit of a repeat, eating grilled food, lots of outdoor games, and the same people involved. I did, however, also attend Mentor's parade, and had I not dehydrated myself on a few beers and some soda with little to no water intake, I would have also attended Mentor's fireworks. Sadly, however, the aforementioned consumption led to bed rest and I had to catch fireworks at Fairport Harbor on the fifth instead.

Useless Stat of the Day:
Just in case you are ever in a bind with no ruler or yardstick around...A coat hanger is 44" long if you straighten it.
I am actually tempted to test this one out, because we have some homemade coat hangers here at home and I have a feeling that not all coat hangers are created equally, but if there is any validity to this particular stat your measuring woes could be over.