christmas with mom's side

friday night kent john and i ate dinner with uncle lloyd and aunt sharon's family, along with sarah's fiance jim and dan's girlfriend genevieve who both seemed nice, and then drove up to rumson
saturday we went to federici's (pizza) and jersey freeze for lunch and then to angelo's (i don't know the actual name of the place but the owner's name is angelo)(italian restaurant with the best tiramasu i've ever eaten) angelo is an italian immigrant who started a restaurant, but it seems the main reason he did so was to have a venue for singing. every hour he steps in his little booth, puts on one of the many funky hats he has hanging there, and sings italian songs with Lots of reverb on the mike, it is IMMENSELY entertaining
sunday was my mom's birthday so we went to a steak place (35$ for the steak... NOTE: i gained 6 pounds this trip) when we sat down my grandpa told the waiter to bring out a creme brule with a candle in it for my mom for dessert, but Not to sing to her, that we would take care of that
while we ate, we learned why he said that
someone else was celebrating their birthday in the restaurant and the waiters all gathered to "sing"
it was Awful, they "sang" in at least 2 different keys, in a weird tempo, and were less than enthusiastic (no applause from the restaurant)
so when it came my mom's turn, she had my grandpa, my dad, my three brothers and i, all of whom have lots of choir experience and decent voices to boot
when we finished we got applause from everyone, and a few jaw hanging stares from some of the other people who were there for the previous rendition (the hostess also came over and said she understood why he didn't want her to sing)
so on to christmas,
because we weren't aware of the traditions over there, we didn't buy any presents for anyone, and because they don't really know any of us, we got gift cards for presents
but not jsut one big gift card each, or one gift card from each of a few places, no, we got 5 gift cards from walmart or best buy all packaged in various ways, which i thought was hilarious
(and also something i consider a great gift, hooray walmart!)
i also got a set of craftsman mini-plier tools that i wanted so that was nice
it was especially great because i felt so at home with that side of the family, my grandpa and uncles' complete lack of enthusiasm when it came to gifts was very comforting
after presents we ate christmas dinner and sat around chatting and listened to amanda play piano and sarah sing (well performed music up close and personal is so wonderful) and watched football (i watched more football this weekend than the rest of the year combined) (my grandpa played for the mizzou tigers for a couple years)
the next morning kent john and i got up and left at 7:15 to drive the 14 hours home (and we didn't die on the way back either)

liam and me

holy-moly guacamole that was loud.........
i have decided conclusively that i am old...
the growing affinity for dark chocolate was a sign, but it was proven at that concert
i've been to a few concerts in concert venues and bars etc. but i have Never experienced one that was even close to as loud as this one
the room was about 40 feet deep, and the volume at the back of the room was over 110 decibels (probably over 130 as that is the threshold of pain and it definitely hurt to be in there, and not entirely because of the bands that played before liam and me, but we'll stick with 110 as a conservative estimate in case you think i'm a wuss) so that means the people who were standing 5 feet from the speakers were experiencing At Least 125 decibels...
why is that a big deal?
well as taken from wikipedia: "In air, sound pressure levels above 85 dB are considered harmful, while 95 dB is considered unsafe for prolonged periods and 120 dB causes an immediate perforation of the ear drum (tympanic membrane)."
so when you see studies about kids with hearing damage from loud music, these are the people they're talking about
but aside from the tympanic damage, and the opportunity to whine about it, the concert was fun and i was glad to support them jsut after they got signed (to thrive records, an indie label of sony) and get a couple shirts :)

family christmas

because i am a little crazy, i drove down to lexington to visit brittany and celebrate her last law school final of the first semester on friday, even though i had to be back home by saturday evening for my family christmas, it was a lot of driving, but i got off work early so there was enough time for a nice visit and some partying
when i got back home (after frantically trying to find an appropriate gift for the exchange) i ate dinner with 30 some of my dad's side of the family as per usual after developing a flow scenario for the kitchen so that people could get their food and get out faster without lots of log-jams
unfortunately, unlike inanimate product, introducing people into a flow problem causes lots of issues that are very difficult/impossible to control
for instance, a certain member of the family is fairly slow, and wants to chat with people and play around instead of getting her food and getting out of the way. you can try insisting that said person goes at the front or back of the line, where they would do the least damage to the flow, but people jsut don't cooperate most of the time...
but all in all it worked fairly well (with some supervision) and we ate and went to grandma's
we had the college and up 'dirty santa' thing and i ended up with two jig-saw puzzles and a roll-up puzzle mat (which is probably going to be donated to a friend who enjoys puzzles)
i also found out that my family is going to new jersey for christmas with my mom's side and i'm pretty excited because i'm finally going to get to see my cousin's band 'liam and me' in concert and also see my grandpa again (who my mom says i am frighteningly similar to)

winter dance works and epee tournament

i've been slowly developing a taste for epee
i always thought sabre was the weapon for me, but i was taught foil first (as is usually the case) and quickly developed a hatred of the spring tips (mostly because my point control sucked), so even though the full body target area of epee appealed to me a little bit (albeit not quite enough to overwhelm how boring it appeared to be) it being a point weapon further sealed my sabre leanings
but.....
now that i've been fencing epee with the bloomington fencing club for a couple months, i've decided i do enjoy it quite a bit (much more than foil but still less than sabre)
that being said, i was going up to purdue for the winter dance works, and (how convenient) will was also hosting an epee 'one weapon night', so i fenced, did not come in dead last, and think that i will probably continue to fence epee as my second weapon (when it doesn't interfere with sabre)
the next night was the winter dance works
it was great to see people and it was also a good show, it's surprisingly nice how my appreciation of modern dance, and ability to recognize at least a little of what's going on, has grown
after the show i crashed the roast at windows (above capp and gino's) (i was second tier invited, which really makes me uncomfortable, and it was worse because they had a small space with tightly planned seating etc.) but i got to have a few of their wonderful martinis and chat with some of the dancers and ellie and matty d and found out that there's a possibility i could dance if i come up to live with nick (which is what i was hoping to hear as i really did enjoy dancing, as bad as i was at it, and would like to learn more)
i also chatted with zak (john's soon-to-be ex-roomate) and john and all in all had a wonderful weekend

dayton

went to visit nick in dayton for the weekend since i hadn't been out there for awhile
we went to the dublin pub friday night and saw a live band play for awhile, and then on to another bar to look for women
i was talking to one girl for three or four minutes, passing the time, having fun, when her friend came over and physically dragged her off, apparently i wasn't up to her standards :)
the next day we hung out a bit, watched some football, and went out with jesse "australian for love" foster, nick's imaginary friend poppy and her roommate
we drove to hammerjacks to meet up with one of the guys nick works with and some dancing and OMG it was the coolest thing EVER, Pedro from Napolean Dynamite was there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
apparently he's in dayton working on a movie, or a promotion or something, so if you liked that sorry excuse for entertainment then i guess you missed out
other than that nick put in his papers to get out of the air force and is thinking about moving back to lafayette and working for sean on his UAV stuff
it's a really cool deal because the projects should actually be interesting, plus i might be moving back up with him, which would be awesome (in a very hetero, it would be nice being back with friends again sort of way)