As far as this XHTML compliancy thing goes, I’ve got a couple more pages to do and I’m working on the news script to make sure it is posting the news with my editing XHTML. I think the only thing that isn’t working completely is the line break tags.

So that’s why I’m posting this — to find out!

Word up, I’m out.

-Brian

So I just now finished things up on the site all the pages are updated with the new coding and everything is good as far as I can tell… or care.

My weekend was pretty busy. On monday alone, I had a test in American History, A paper due in Technical Writing, a speech in Public Speaking, and I THOUGHT I had some sketches due for Director, but they ended up not being due. To top that off, I had a project due bright and early on Tuesday for After Effects and a good deal of questions/problems for Accounting. So I spent my Friday night sitting around in my room with nothing to do working on some homework and working up a good buzz because it sucked not having anything to do after a busy week.

Saturday, I spent most of the day searching for some nameless software to complete some nameless homework with. I finally found a working version shortly before dinner and when I got home got to work on my project, which consumed most of my night. Sunday, I worked on other homework and sat around a bunch and worked on homework later in the evening again.

Now it’s Tuesday.. no… Wednesday, and I finally can relax a bit. Mike and Doug should be coming over soon, but all they really care about is the OC and Madden. Big whoop.

My speech went fairly well. I think. I got my test returned today and he said I did pretty good, but I can’t read his damn writting or decipher his marking system to know how I did. The Tech. Writing paper was perfect, with some good comments and I seem to have gotten ahold of my accounting assignments, so good deal there. My director sketches were a little sub-par apparently but hopefully this weekend I’ll get some time to start the project and have something to show for myself.

Mike Bertels is the kind of guy who would beat up a group of small children for a million bucks. Of course, so am I.

Tonight Mike and I went to the Dragons game. He scored tickets from his sports marketing class. The Dragons got owned bigtime, by the 6th inning it was 0 to 6. We decided to stay around not to see if they could come back, but if the other team could manage a perfect game. In the top of the 7th they blew it when the Dragons got a base hit. Darn.

Right now I’m pretty swamped with work. Work I should have done over the weekend, but opted not to because dammit, I deserve to enjoy my weekend.

I have that blasted Director project to work on, which might I say, sucks. Not only that, but I have to study for a midterm in director tomorrow. The only relieving part of that is that apparently it means we are halfway through the term… which all that I can say about that is I’m damn glad, because I’ve grown to hate late nights of homework.

I was supposed to have an English paper done on Monday, but of course I didn’t give a crap to do it over the weekend, so I just got done doing it now. I’ll hand it in tomorrow and my instructor won’t give a crap that I’m turning it in late. That’s a fairly comforting thought.

Then we have public speaking. Stupid public speaking. There are 7 speeches in the duration of the term. 3 are done, 4 to go.. in 5 weeks time. I have a speech to do on Monday that I’ve only barely thought about what I want to do it on, and I’m expected to turn in my outline and planning for it on Friday. So tomorrow I need to do that. I’m supposed to do a demonstration, which seems simple enough, but I don’t want to do some pushover subject that will rack up the boring points. I need visual aids too, which shouldn’t be hard on a demonstration. Lucky for me, the first group of people give their speeches tomorrow, so I’ll have something to base mine off of by Monday. Of course that could mean extra work, but I don’t have high expectations from that class.

I just took an Accounting test today. It seemed to go fairly well. There was one question that looked greek to me, and unfortunately it was one where I was supposed to fill out some statement, so it probably counted for more points. Dammit.

After Effects is good. After Effects is my one saving grace or something like that. We are supposed to be working on the bookwork right now, but I think the first project has basically taken care of most of that. Not only that, but we are going to an art museum for class on Thursday, which will of course rock.

This weekend is May Days (Daze?) at Wright State. I plan to be pretty inebriated before most people are home from work. Me and the captain will make it happen.

Aside from school, I need to get a freaking job. Funds are dropping towards zero but time is mostly already there. Damn.

Well, Friday was my last day at Cast-Fab. My dad is pushing for me to work some other position there, and I wouldn’t mind it but I fear it would be more of a pain in the ass than anything. It may be helpful to him, but I’m ready to have time to do the things a 21 year old is supposed to do. Aside from that, I think in about a week I’m going to be swamped with homework.

I start school in less than 12 hours. I have to go to bed now and I hope I can actually sleep. With any luck, I’ll be able to set my sleep schedule back just fine. I can’t wait to be back in class. I really hope I can motivate myself to do my work and do really well in my classes. I have David for a class, so I can say that I probably won’t ace all of them, but I can still feel good about doing my best.

I’m looking at a spreadsheet I typed up with all the classes I’ve completed, all the classes I’m enrolled in, and all the classes I need. It turns out I need 6, but I know that some of those may be covered by the “junk” courses I’ve taken. I have to find out for certain because one of the classes I’m in right now is supposed to fill one of those requirements, and there’s no sense in wasting my time with it if it isn’t worth my time… or money!

Anyway, tomorrow after school I have to drive home and drive halfway back to Cincy for some American Foundryman’s Society Banquet. In my ten weeks at Cast-Fab I managed to net a scholarship out of it and I have to be present to collect it. Well, I’m not certain I have to be present, but I’m sure Dad would prefer that. It’s in the mid-hundreds, as far as I know. That would be super-rad if it was way more, but hell, I’d happily take a $5 scholarship. Maybe the banquet thing will have free drinks and I can make it more worth the trip. I think I’m also going to look up if CState has any scholarships pretty much for the taking. I know Doug has gotten a few from Sinclair mostly just because he applies, maybe I’ll have the same luck. I seriously should have done this in high school. Althought they probably would have all been revoked with the whole Wright-State thing.

Anyway, I need to stop logging around and get into bed. Now that I’m back in school I’m sure the updates will flow like… fluid.. type.. updates. Yeah.

I’m so freaking tired. I’ve had about 4 hours of sleep the past two nights, staying up to work on projects and all. Yesterday my Director project was due. I really didn’t get started on it until Tuesday, and I started over on Friday, so I had little time to make it look good. It turned out alright, though. I was supposed to have an english paper and a speech yesterday, but I skipped those classes because I hadn’t had time to do either of them. It sounds bad to say I did that, but I’m glad I did. I don’t think I could have given a speech yesterday. I also had a test in History, which went fairly well. Dr. Kuranga has gotten really cool. He gave us the test and let us look over it with our notes for about 5 minutes before we started on it. That helped out so much.

Today an after effects project was supposed to be due, but somehow it is now due Thursday. Which is so so good, because I didn’t get time to start on it until last night, and I’m barely half done, and that’s a half-assed half done.

I have some homework I need to do for accounting. It’s due at 1. After accounting, I have to go home and do my speech and paper for Tech. writing. Then I will be a very happy man, because both after effects and director will only have the final project left, I’ll only have 2 more speeches to give, and probably 3 more papers, and accounting test on Thursday, among some other tests.
I’ll be happy when this week is over. Actually, I’ll probably be happy right after my test Thursday, because I won’t have to do jack on Friday.

So aside from being raped by schoolwork, and not having much time, I’ve been trying to get out and have fun. Mike and I have been hanging out quite a bit, despite our busy schedules.

I went to OU for Saturday and Sunday. It was probably a dumb move in regards to getting my schoolwork done, because I probably wouldn’t have had to skip the two classes Monday if I hadn’t gone, but screw that. I’m happy I went.

Mike and I got there shortly after lunchtime on Saturday, and it was great to just be able to sit around and do jack squatt with Brownie before going to a party. So we went to the party had a good time, wondered off to Taco Bell, went back to the party and such. There was free beer everywhere, which isn’t a bad thing at all. In the morning, we just chilled for a little while, played a little NES and good times were had.

It was so relaxing to just go to OU for the night like that. The best part is, aside from my umm… beverage expenses (and I’m not counting those because I brought most of it back) I spent like, 8 bucks. (mostly because Brownie was cool and let us use his meal card for a great breakfast.)

So yeah. If I don’t lose my mind in the next two days, I’ll be home free for a good week or so. HOORAH!

I’ve started typing out things twice and lost it or whatever. No big deal.
There hasn’t been too much going on outside of school anyway.

Yesterday my last class finished up, and for some reason, we get two weeks break rather than the normal 4 days. I’m not complaining at all. I spent all my day, from about 9AM until 9PM cleaning. I’ve got all the cicada stew washed off my car, although I haven’t actually washed it completely. I’ve vaccumed it all out and I need to pick up some armor-all so I can get that done. I want to steam clean the floors, but I don’t know if the sun will stay out long enough anytime soon for me to leave my doors open all day.

My room is looking pretty good. I’ve gotten rid of 3 bags of junk so far and I might pull off another one or two. Around this time last year I did the same thing. I have a bad habit of holding on to some things I really don’t need for a while, and I seem to get rid of more and more of it everytime I clean my room. The obligitory pictures will come tomorrow… or whenever I get done.

My agenda for tomorrow consists of cleaning my bathroom and trying to get done with my room. I doubt I’ll get all of that done. (If you saw the bathroom, you’d understand.) I’ve been holding out on cleaning the bathroom, trying to make Joe finally do it. He hasn’t cleaned it in well over a year, I’ve cleaned it the past 3 or 4 times at least.

I also want to get around to cleaning up my workbench… so that people can pile more crap on it and not let me use it… as usual. Pfftt. I might as well get rid of the damn thing.

I have a bunch of stuff in the attic that I put up there shortly before I moved to WSU (again, more stuff I didn’t want to get rid of at the time) and if I can get everything else done, I’ll start trying to get through some of those boxes. Fat chance I’ll get all of that done, though.

It seems to me like I’m the only one in the house that can keep my “stuff” under control. Joe has piles of crap in just about every room. His room is filled, except for the path from his bed to his door. His computer is in MY closet… and I’m about a day away from just sticking it in his room and letting him deal with it. He claims that he doesn’t want to throw anything away because he’s going to want it when he moves out “real soon”… but he’s also been claiming that for about a year and a half. My dad has one corner of my room overtaken with his computer and the mess that comes with it. It’s discouraging to have that there when I’m trying to clean my room. If anyone touches it, they get yelled at. I love him to death and I know he’s a busy man, but the piles of stuff he has sitting around makes my whole room look like crap. My mom, love her to death too, but she controls most of the space in the house. I don’t really see the point of having a living room just to look good. If we can’t use it, then why have the room at all? I guess that’s just something I’ll never understand.

Anyhow, aside from being clean freak Brian right now…

Doug’s 21st birthday was yesterday!! WHOOO! The last E-Man to turn 21! We celebrated Monday night, last night, and we’ll be doing it again Friday.
Monday we went to a bar at midnight and the bartender was cool as hell. He gave Doug about 3 or 4 drinks on the house.
Last night, we went to the bowling alley, and well… Doug probably doesn’t remember anything after 10 O’clock. Everyone of the people he worked with were buying him drinks. He kept a list of everything he had and who gave it to him and I really need to get a picture of it to show the full effect of how hammered he was.
Friday night there will be a keg party at the Doug and Mike apartment. I’m trying to get kitty to come with me because I haven’t seen her in forever. Me and Mike are also trying to get Mike Schmidt to come. That would be sweet times 1 bizillion if they came.

So yeah. Back to cleaning now. :tired:

I got my grades in the mail yesterday and I can finally breathe a sigh of relief. I was kinda scared that a couple of my classes might not have gone too well. Of course I also have a tendency of having a pessemistic outlook on things because I’m not doing as good as I wanted to.

I got an A in both Technical Writing and After Effects. I turned in all my assignments for Technical Writing the last week of class… when most of them were “due” a couple weeks earlier. Luckly for me, the instructor didn’t care that people were turning things in late. I knew she had said this, but like I said, I worry too much.

I got B’s in Public Speaking, Accounting, and Director. I wasn’t too concerned with these classes. I worried a bit about Accounting because the instructor for that class graded on some really stupid things. I got A’s on all of my tests (and I’m about 95% sure I aced the final) but I only did like, 1/3 of the homework and didn’t turn in anything for a few other assignments. I really could have had an A if I had the time to do that homework. Oh well.

I got a C in American History. I should have done much better because I should have studied more for the first two tests. But I’ll take the C because it means I pass of my classes. 21 credit hours. It feels so good to know that I’m now only a couple of classes (and a couple of co-ops) away from graduation.

Doug’s party was pretty cool. He felt kinda bummed because nobody from his work showed up, even after saying they would come. But Ashley and Angie showed up, so I think that makes up for it all.
For the unoffical count, because I lost track, I had in the area of 12 beers, 2 jagerbombs, 3 coke (might have been a 4th), then an improvised jager bomb… after I started to make one for me and Kristin I realized I only had one shot of jagermeister, so she made the suggestion that I replace some of it with vodka… which I ended up putting a full shot of in each one. I was drinking well until we went to bed around 3 or 4ish.

Saturday I hung around their apartment for a bit while my head cleared up. I woke up around 9 or 10, so after all of those drinks I had a buzz left.

So yeah.

Here I am, Sunday night… nothing to do. But I think I like it.

So my two week vacation between classes is over now. I had my first two classes today and they should be easy.

I have sculpture first on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I went out this afternoon and bought some of my supplies. I still have some things to get, but they shouldn’t cost more than a couple bucks. The book was like, 40 bucks, but we only need it for four chapters. So I’m going to try and read all of that tomorrow and just return it before the end of the week. haha. The class should be fun. I can imagine playing with clay and other objects for a little while twice a week to be not only relaxing, but entertaining. The instructor for it is really cute, so that’s a definate bonus

After Sculpture, I have an hour break, then I have Adobe Premeire. I was supposed to have this before After Effects… but Jason was cool and ok’ed me for the AE class. Anyhow, this class might be a bit of work, but it will be fun. The only thing I don’t really like is that we will probably be using 90% video for any projects, whereas I like using my own digital work for projects. No big deal. Maybe it will turn me on to something new. I have the same instructor for this class that I had for Digital Media Concepts, and she is really cool, so again, this shouldn’t be hard. Being a summer class may help for that, too.

Tomorrow I have Usability Assesment. Sounds boring, probably is, but it should be cake. I might manage to learn something good in that class. The only thing I don’t really like is that it is a night class, which I’m sure I’ll really end up hating by the end of the term, but I’m just ready to get done with my classes. It’s only on Wednesdays, and it’s my only class that day, so at least I will still have my whole day free.

Mike and I went to see a premeire of SpiderMan 2 last night. Theresa met me there. She’s so cute. Joe was obviously there working, and Kristen came along to see the movie, too. The movie was pretty damn good. A bit better than the first, with the exception of a bit of bad CG, but it might just have been because I was paying a lot of attention to that. Go see the movie. It is super-rad.

Afterwords, the 5 of us and 3 of Joe’s interns went to grab a bite to eat. We wanted Steak N’ Shake, but apparently the one near the Tri-County Mall was levelled a week ago. So we went to a couple other places looking to see what was open. Of course, being JUST AFTER 10PM, most places had already closed. Eventually, we wound up at Ruby Tuesday. Everyone was saying how mad the employees would be because we were coming in 40 minutes before they close. The way I see it, if it was a problem, they would close at 11, but stop seating people at 10 or something. Oh well. We had a good time there. Talked bunches and stuff.

So….

uhh… yeah.

Last week was something I’d never expect. I was supposed to be house sitting for Aunt Maria from Tuesday until late Thursday. I got to her house around 1, and mostly just played around on my laptop for a while. Later on, I went to Aunt Maureen’s to help her with her computer. I got back, settled down for a bit. For some reason I was exhausted and a little bored. I gave Joe a call to see if he was going to come over because he had said he might, but he was on his way back from Louisville from a Van Halen concert. So I went to bed shortly before midnight.

I woke up Wednesday morning around 8 and started making myself some oatmeal when the doorbell rang. At first I ignored it because it wasn’t my house and I didn’t care to BS with anyone stopping by for some strange reason. After about a minute, it rang again, so I figured I should answer it.

When I opened the door, my dad was standing there. This was pretty strange because at 8AM he should be at work. He was off Monday for the July 4th holiday observance, but he had been at work Tuesday, so I couldn’t think of any reason he wouldn’t be at work on Wednesday. At first I figured he just stopped by to check on me or something, but once he came inside I knew something was wrong. As we passed the couch he said “You wanna sit down?” He said it in the voice that he normally uses when I’m in trouble or when he lectures me, but my first thought was that something had happened to Joe. I know that he has been exhausted lately from all the work, and could only imagine that the 3 or 4 hour drive back to Franklin took it’s toll on him and he didn’t make it back.

“Your cousin Matt is dead. He shot himself last night. I’m sorry.”

…
…..

My initial reaction was to be relieved that Joe was okay. But less than a second later his words started to sink in. I immediately thought of one of the times that Matt and I (along with Joe and Matt’s brother Drew) spent the night at my Aunt Maureen’s. Naturally, I didn’t believe it. As my dad wiped the tears from his eyes he asked me if I was okay. “Yeah” I said. After all, it really hadn’t hit me. My dad told me that most of the family was going to my Grandma and Grandpa’s to be together and then left to go there.

I ate my oatmeal all while more memories of Matt flashed through my head.

Matt’s visitation was held Friday night and the Funeral was Saturday morning. It wasn’t until I saw Matt at the visitation that it really sunk in.

Thursday night we were all relieved to hear that it was found that the shooting was accidental. I don’t know the exact details of how things unfolded so I won’t talk about it, but at first everyone was torn apart to think that he may have purposely shot himself. I knew that Matt may have had some problems, but I also knew that he would never do that.

The entire family pulled together to help my Uncle Mike (Matt’s Father) make funeral arrangements. As most of the family said, Matt would be so happy and proud to see the family come together.

I think Grandpa said it best when he said the following: “We’ll make it through this. We believe in the lord and believe in each other and we’ll make it through this.” and later: “This family has been so fortunate that nothing bad has ever really happened to them that we have to thank the lord the blessings he has given us.”

Matt, know that you were always loved and that you will be dearly missed. May you rest in peace. We love you!

Matthew M. Fields- January 25, 1982 - July 7, 2004

Last night I had to house sit for my Aunt Maria one more time. She went to visit uncle Brett then bring him home because his time with the reserves is done for now. Aunt Maria thought it would be a good idea to invite Drew and Sean (Matt’s brothers, my cousins) over to hang out for the night. I got off work yesterday at 4, got a shower and relaxed for a few minutes then came over here. They got here about 15 or 20 minutes after I did.

We had a blast. Sean and I played a little bit of co-operative Halo, but we ended up killing each other more than anything. Then we watched Gladiator, woofed down a bunch of junk food and made a pizza. After that we decided we wanted to go to blockbuster and rent a video game or something and Drew wanted some ice cream. When we got to blockbuster we decided that we really didn’t see anything we liked and just decided to play a bunch of Super Smash Brothers, so Drew got his ice crem across the street at Krogers and we went back to Aunt Maria’s. We played that until about 2 or so, then we started watchin Goodfellas. Sean fell asleep in about 20 minutes and Drew went to sleep around quarter till for or so.

We all pretty much woke up around 9:30-10ish. Sean had to leave to go learn to drive and Drew left then too, just because he felt like crap from all the junk food we had.

We all agreed that we definately need to hang out again and wondered why we hadn’t really done it much.

:)

So it’s about noon now and I’m just waiting for Aunt Maria and Uncle Brett to get back now. Uncle Mike said that they should probably be back around mid afternoon or so, so I’ll probably just play some video games and watch some TV or something.

See ya.