Vacation
I really enjoy writing about good times down on here for posterity. It beats writing about being bummed out as I have been. I think this time off has given me time to rewrite some of who I am and I have been lucky. Its hard for me to let go and open up and I have done that.

I have been working my ass off, trying to impress my boss, so I can make it into the ranks of a full state employee. During this whole process I managed to get jerked around a whole lot. There were some promises of promotions and new openings and things that never materialized due to budget constraints. Believe it or not, but no advancement was made and all my work was for naught. Some of this lead me down a path to being slightly crazy or for a better word, tweaked out. I'd come home in a daze, waste some time, then either go to bed ridiculously late or super early. Patterns formed. I was fickle. Doing normal things seemed to bum me out exponentially. I stopped buying food for home for about a month. Anyway, that is the end of the bad news.

I thought December 31st was supposed to be my last day, so I was going to cancel my big trip to Orlando. Was even more bummed out. I ended up putting some jobs together to help fund my trip down despite my lack of employment. Good news came out of nowhere that my job had been extended, and I had about three different computer repair jobs waiting for me in Winston to make some gas money. The other great thing is that I earned so much comp time that I had about 3 days worth of getting paid. So I had three paying repair jobs, a very small amount of xmas money, and a great amount of comp time... not to mention a job to come home to.

I had an excellent Christmas. Unfortunately due to all the extra work, I did not get to see any friends while in Winston-Salem. I spent a low key holiday with my parents which was great. We went on Christmas to Nawab which is always amazing (I'm prone to talk about food).

The morning of the 27th I headed back towards Raleigh. Super excited. I had big plans with two great friends. My friend Matt (best dude ever in the world by the way) was in town from Portland so we met up and got some food with my friend Mike from Athens and his wife Sam who I had never met but was super nice. Amazing people all around, and we got some homemade tofu at Dalat which sweetened the deal.

Post food action, we all rolled out to the show I helped book. My friend Ryan's band Positive Noise ended up coming through from Michigan and was sooo sooo good. Biff, who used to be in I Object with Ryan, his band Brown Sugar played. Some younger friends of his were on tour with them called Rational Animals. Last was Coke Bust, who is ever amazing. We had a huge turnout. Really was a standout show, plus all the bands got paid well, and nothing randomly bad happened. Pretty much a perfect night. A late night at that.

The next morning, armed with a nice new xmas Garmin and my friend Angie as my co-pilot, we headed south. Dear lord, the 28th was the WRONG day to travel. 95 was destroyed with deadstops. I made at least four detours onto smaller roads to get down. We ended up making a pit stop in St Augustine. My friend Justin and his girlfriend Zoe made us some late dinner. We had driven about 11 hours at this point and it was amazing to have some hot homecooked food rather than nasty fast food trash. We ended up hanging over at their house for about two hours then headed on to Orlando where Leilani had scouted a spot to sleep at. We ended up rolling in at around 3:30 and crashing out fairly soon afterwards. Super rad house in a nice area. Greg and Matt were super good dudes for letting us crash on their floor.

This brings us to the first day of the fest. Wake up, try to figure something to eat. Urban Spoon suggests Ethos Vegan Kitchen.. so off we went. A++ food. Got a philly steak. Saw 9123809218 people I knew in the restaurant. We reconvened in the park across from the cafe after eating and just sat around and talked. It was a good mixture of people, some from south Florida, we were from NC, some from the DC outskirts, and some from up in Michigan. Right over in the water were about three herrings milling around... so cool. After this we rolled up to The Black Box where the fest was being held this year. Kind of a really cool DIY space which obviously used to be a garage of some sort with a warehouse on the back of it. Its in a really odd neighborhood, kind of sandwiched right off a really nice road, but then in the start of a kind of run down area. I believe I was told there is a homeless shelter nearby which may mean a little more later on in this. So we set up my distro.. super helped by Angie and Leilani. Lyle happened to be there which ruled. Got to see Nathan Lane too which always rules, and Adrien and Keri. Lots of good people from Florida areas. Fiz too, and Cody! Also my awesome friend Paul from Boston-area was there. Anyhows, I forgot to mention that our day of travel made us miss the first day, but that did not bother me at all. This first day had some great bands play.. most notably World, Coke Bust, Helldistort, Replublicorpse, I Hate This, and Religious as Fuck. Positive Noise I thought sounded much better at the GSS House, and I must have missed Merkit but everyone was talking about them. After the show a large group of us ended up rolling to 'The Hospital' which I thought was just a weird name for a place to eat, but it was literally a hospital cafeteria who served veggie/vegan friendly food. Got a little loud in there, kind of embarrassed me considering where we were. Apparently this was a normal ritual. Ended up staying out late and so we came back in to the same house we crashed at the night before and crashed out after hanging out with Greg and Matt for a bit.

This next morning we made another food trip. First plan of action was to get Leilani new knitting needles, but this was ill fated because the drive down to AC Moore was horrid and then it was closed down for good. We went to Garden Cafe which is an all veggie Chinese place. I think I ordered the wrong food, I was not very impressed. We went to the last day of the fest after this. Lemuria and Ramming Speed tabled on either side of us this day, and we slowly and awkwardly became friends with both of these folks. Super nice people on both ends. Both bands were super good live. Best band of the fest and best dudes I know from Miami, Mehkago NT played later on in the evening. Soooooooo goooooooood. I love all these guys. Some other bands played too, haha. I sold like five things out of my distro which was disappointing but not a big loss. After the fest but my legs felt as if they were about to fall off so I opted for going to the hospital round two. Super chill this go-round. Was able to hang with Spinach who I had just met and was super nice. Also hung out with Lemuria folks even more. Totally rad folk. Got to finally spend time with Biff too. So we had originally had the plan of Leilani driving back with us but some miscommunication happened and feelings got involved and she ended up riding back that night with some other folks. We were able to crash back at the same house if we bought Matt some soap for the bathroom, so we GPS'd a 711 and got that and rolled in at 2 and crashed out. Lyle was now with us for the trip back up.

Next morning we woke up a little late, decided that Ethos was needed to be eaten one last time. Split a super good pesto pizza with Angie. We got on the road. No real amounts of traffic, cruise controlled it on two hours... then decided to go to the beach. We drop a few miles off the highway to St. Augustine's beach and walked around for awhile. Took a bunch of pictures, had some fun. We then got back on the highway. Plans had shifted to Charlotte for New Years, so that is where we were heading. I realized we would go right through Columbia. Got to stop and eat some chili at Aubrey's (we ate NO fast food this trip thanks to awesome friends!!). Uppon heading back towards I24 I recognized exactly where we were.. right down the street from my friends who stay in a house called the 112 House. Decided to stop by since it was not mega mega late and I figured they would have a party. Nope, no party.. house had a light on so I rang the bell. A girl answered the door and upon me asking if Stefan was there and that I was from out of town, she insisted on me coming in and writing him a note. As we left, Lyle and Angie were like... 'holy crap, her and the dude who lived there were totally having sex'. We successfully New Year Eve cock blocked a couple for a short amount of time.

Then we rolled up on Charlotte at 11:30 for the party at The Penalty Box. Mega random people, but got to say hey to Jarvis, Rob, Neal, Nick, and those folk. Tried to get Lyle to dance with this girl wearing almost nothing. Everyone ran outside for the count down. I was shivering. 2009. Spent another hour at the party then went to Neal's and crashed while watching Wall-E.

Slept in since we had lunch plans with my friend Heather. Ended up waking up and she was not ready so we watching 90% of Thrashin and went and met her at Taipei South. So good! Rolled back to Raleigh. Dropped Lyle off at Cup A Joe so that he and Olivia could go up to DC (and bring me Sticky Finger's back!). Angie and I rolled by my house to unload my distro then over to her place to make some food and crashout since we were going to the Life and Science Museum in the morning. Morning ended up being gross so we just kicked it. Went and saw Slumdog Millionaire which was good and ended up going over to Jesse's. Candace was on her way back from Greensboro for some reason and we stuck around and all hung out. Was kind of odd since no one would commit to do anything tangible. We finally all went to the grocery. Said goodbye and went and crashed out.

Ended up playing some soccer in amazing weather at 1 today. Ruled. Then I did a bunch of chores and unfun stuff. Cooked ghetto burritos with Seth and then tallied up distro stock the rest of the night and now here I am.

I think I am super lucky to have seen so many good friends from far away places. I think these two weeks was the perfect amount of family, friends, food, (f)music, and fun times.