Category: Friends

Up Early

/ Paul / Leave a comment

Brad worked this weekend so again I’ve been unable to spend any significant amount of time with him. We did get together for a few hours last night. I met him at his house at 7:00. We took a walk around his neighborhood and then over to Baskin Robbins for ice cream. I had peanut butter and chocolate ice cream with carmel sauce. So bad but so good. No weight loss this weekend, I’m sure. Brad had pralines and cream ice cream. We sat and ate our ice cream and then walked back to his house. We then sat on the porch and just talked. However, there was more silence then talk. My butt was in pain from sitting on bricks for so long so we went inside and sat on the couch. After awhile Brad said he was going to bed. I asked if he wanted me to stay over and he said, “No, not really.” So I left.

I may never understand men.

Why am I up so early on a Sunday morning blogging you might ask? For the second night in a row I haven’t slept well and I was up early. There are lots of thoughts and feelings floating through my mind and I can’t figure them out. I guess that’s what kept me from sleeping. I may post again later today. We’ll see.

A BIG Thank You to YOU for the iTunes codes for free songs. You know who you are. That was very nice of you! Keep drinking Pepsi for me!

Old Town

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My friend David wanted some new pictures taken for profiles and web pages so I went over to his house this afternoon. I ended up taking 105 pictures. Of course any photographer knows that of that many pictures only about 5 or so are actually good. He liked about 15 of them. David wanted several poses and different outfits so we spent time picking those out and finding different places around his house to take pictures. So we spent the afternoon taking pictures and changing outfits. The results aren’t too bad.

While I was at David’s and during one of his outfit changes, I called Sweet Brad to find out what we were doing this evening. We weighed our options and decided to go to Old Town Alexandria for dinner and walking around. David decided to join us. So David and I met Brad down at the Torpedo Factory and we walked over to the Fish Market for dinner. The meal was good. There was a guy there with his ‘girlfriend’ but he kept looking at me. Brad saw it too. Every time his girl looked away, he looked at me. He did this for quite awhile. I couldn’t figure out why he was looking at me. It was odd. After dinner we walked up and down the street and checked out some of the stores. After walking around awhile we decided to go to Ben and Jerry’s for ice cream. We walked to the store to find out it was closed. They had such damage from the hurricane in September that they have not reopened. So we walked back up the street to some frozen custard place. I can’t remember the name of it, but it was pretty good. We then walked down to the waterfront. I’ve been to Old Town before but haven’t been down to the waterfront. Pretty nice. There was a slight breeze and it wasn’t too cold at all. Brad pointed out all the sights we would be able to see if it was light. We lost all the daylight while walking up and down the street. I made a mental note to return to Old Town during daylight hours so I could get some great pictures. Without significant light, the pictures didn’t turn out that great so I only found 3 that I liked. I’ll definitely return and get some great pictures. Lots of things to see down there. We then walked around some more and decided to call it a night. We all parted ways and I followed Brad back to his house. I hung out with him awhile. We laid on the couch and touched and talked. I was trying to get him to become a more emotional person and express his feelings. He thought he did. I disagreed. We left it at that. It was getting late and I know he was getting tired. I know when he’s getting tired when he starts scratching his head. When he does that a lot, it’s time to go. So I said my goodbyes, gave him a little kiss, and I was on my way. Overall it was a very nice evening.

People From The Past

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The past always comes back in one way or another. In the last 24 hours, I have heard from (in one form or another) 2 people from my past.

As many of you know, I recently moved my web site to my own domain name. Having this new service allows me to see the statistics of my web site. Within those statistics you will find tons of information about what visitors look at on my site, what files are accessed the most, what domain names are visiting my site (as well as specific IP addresses) and what countries the URL’s are coming from. Someone who I haven’t been in contact with for quite awhile is checking out my web site and reading my blog. I know this because I can see the IP address or URL and there is no other person I know who would be visiting my site from that state or that URL. As it turns out, this persons visits access more on my site then anyone else, except for myself, that is. I hope this post doesn’t scare that person away from continuing to check out the site or the blog. I would hope they enjoy seeing what changes on the site and what’s going on in my life enough to write about it in my blog. So a question enters my mind. Why doesn’t this person send me an e-mail or comment? They could simple say, “Hey, I’m enjoying your site.” As a matter of fact, I hardly get any comments or e-mails about my site or blog. Not that I’m begging for them or anything. I just think it would be interesting to hear from people who are checking out my site and hear what they think about it. Maybe sending an e-mail or a comment gives up that anonymity that so many people enjoy while visiting web sites. Who knows.

Last night right after sweet Brad went home, after spending a few hours with me watching the news and catching up, I got a phone call from a guy I knew in college. He and I were very good friends in college. At one time I had a huge crush on this guy but he let me know that I wasn’t his type. No problem. We stayed good friends anyway. He graduated a year before me but stayed in touch for a few years after college. The last time I talked to him was 5 years ago. He said he was going through his phone book and saw my number and thought he’d call. Pretty wild. So we chatted and caught up on each other’s lives. Kinda cool how you can not stay in touch with someone for so long but as soon as you pick up the phone it’s like no time has passed. We had a nice chat and decided to get together soon to have a dinner. It’ll be good to see him again. It’s been so long.

Dog Sitting

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I’m such a good friend. My friend Michael was working at a Home and Garden show today so he asked me to watch his boyfriend’s dog so that he (the boyfriend) could go with him to the show. I said sure. So they dropped Flannon off at about 9:30 this morning and he’s been visiting with me ever since. As you can see from the pictures, he’s a very cute dog. He’s very well behaved and doesn’t shed much hair at all. For the first 20 minutes or so, Flannon sat at my front door waiting for his daddy to come and get him. He cried a little bit but nothing major. He got over it and came into my computer room and sat with me while I did work on the computer. I have floor to ceiling windows so I opened the blinds and he sat at the window looking out seven floors up. He has spent most of the day in that spot. It will be getting dark soon so he won’t be able to see much. I wonder if he’ll keep looking out in the dark. We’ll see. I’ve taken him out 3 times today for walks and bathroom breaks. He only ate a little bit this morning but twice he’s had little doggie poops. I was a very good dog walker and took my little plastic bags and picked up the poop when he was finished. I can’t say others who were there before me did the same. In our dog walk area there is poop all over the place. You have to be careful where you step! This afternoon I laid down on the couch to watch TV and to take a nap. Flannon jumped up on the couch and laid on my chest and licked my face before taking a little nap right on my chest. It was so cute. I wish I had someone here to take a picture of it. He stayed on my chest and I fell asleep for a good 20 minutes before the phone rang and woke us both up. It was very sweet. I’ll have him until about 9:00 tonight. I figured this was a good test to see if I could handle having a dog in a highrise. At this point in the adventure, I’m not sure I’d have a dog in a highrise. It’s kind of a pain to get him downstairs and out the door to do his business. And I’d hate to have to do it when it’s snowing or raining. That would really suck. So I’ve decided I won’t be getting a dog until I live in a house with a yard. I know I won’t get a cat either. I can’t stand the cat hair. I know lots of people who have cats and love them. I love them too. . . as long as they don’t live in my house. So Flannon has shown me that I’m not a “dog in a highrise” kinda guy.

On another note, the Oscars are on tonight! Yeah, I’m glad I took a nap so that I can stay up to the end of the show. I also downloaded my ballet so that I could guess the winners. I’ll keep track during the show to see how many predictions I get correct. I usually do pretty well. Each year though, I see less and less of the nominated movies. This year I’ve only seen two of the movies. I’ve got to get out more and see movies! I’ll let you know tomorrow how my predictions went.

Happy Leap Day!

Dinner With Sam and Mark

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I spent most of the day cleaning my house, running the dishwasher, doing laundry and generally picking up. I keep my place very neat and tidy but when I know someone’s coming over, I do an extra good job of getting the dust off the furniture. I have dark furniture and the dust always shows. I can dust my house at 10:00 in the morning and by 2:00 I can see dust again. Must be the dark furniture. Before cleaning the house I went ot Giant to get all the items I needed to create my usual pasta dinner. I got everything done and had time to take a little nap before the guests showed up.


Brad and I had Sam and Mark over for dinner. They decided to get their passports validated and come out to the suburbs. I cooked my usual pasta dinner with bread and salad. I had way too much salad. I made Brad take it home because he knows I won’t eat it since I don’t eat fruits or veggies. We had a nice dinner and some great conversation. Sam and Mark told us about their trip to Puerto Rico. They brought a CD full of pictures they had taken. I, of course, got out my 17″ PowerBook and quickly created a slide show for us to watch. In a matter of minutes, iPhoto was showing us the dazzling pictures of their trip. I was trying to convince Mark how great Apple is. After the slide show, I opened Safari and brought up my web page to show Mark the wireless ability of my laptop. I’m not sure it amazed him but I loved it. While watching the slideshow, I realized Puerto Rico is beautiful. I’ll have to make a mental note to go there sometime. After watching the slide show, we had Mark’s delicious pineapple upside down cake for dessert. We talked about movies. We shared what our favorites are and which oscar nominees we’ve seen. Then Brad shared an article from The Economist about the gay marriage debate. Sam and Mark told us they would be flying out to San Francisco next week to get married. I told them they’d have to take lots of pictures and tell us all about it when they get back. After more conversation, Sam and Mark decided it was time to go. Brad took them back to the Metro. We had a very nice visit. Sam and Mark are great guys and they are good friends to Brad. He’s a lucky guy to have them as friends.

Then Brad came back and stayed over with me. He was so tired. Poor thing has had a tough week at work and hasn’t been sleeping well. He probably should have gone home and tried to get a good night sleep at his place but he stayed and I enjoyed having him next to me while I slept.