I love Germans... and other various happenings

It's 3:30am and in the past week I've had enough meat and beer to kill a small elephant. Seriously, I'm not trying to stereotype an entire culture, but the 5 Germans that I've spent time with this past week really do live on beer, bread, meat, and cheese. Like, woah. Just this weekend, we've gone through almost 7 or 8 pounds of London Broil steak, and 4 cases of beer(not counting what we had out at bars). If you're thinking, "wow, that sounds really excessive" you're right. It is excessive, but lucky for my body 2 have left already, 2 leave tomorrow, and that leaves only one German here until the middle of April.

Besides the 'blitzkreig' on my digestive system, it's been such a blast having them here. M has been home on spring break, Surfer just got back from a stay in costa rica(for surfing), and since almost all the Germans have been friends of GC's he's been around all the time too. The cool thing about that, is that all 4 of us took an extensive amount of German in high school (personally, German 1,2,3,4,and AP, as well as a 201 and 301 in college, while both M, Surfer, and GC have spent a minimum of 6 months in Germany at one time or another in addition to the classes in school) So we'll be sitting around talking, or huddling by a bonfire to keep warm(like tonight) and spend 70% of the conversation all speaking in German. I've used my German more in the last two weeks then I have in the last two years combined and the improvement I can hear in myself is quite refreshing. I know that I've lost sooooo much having not spoken it often, but it's also coming back much quicker than I expected.

In other, non-German related news... the Intranet I have been developing since November finally went live on Thursday!!! It's still a bit sparse and a little rough, but it's up for testing and the scores of suggestions that I hope to get for content. It wasn't without it's glitches though. So, one of the things my boss's boss (the one who assigned me this project) wanted was a way for the counselors to all communicate with each other and have an interactive calendar for events they want to let other counselors know about. So I did my research and found an module for the PHPBB2.0.23 bulletin board/forum program. Great, it does everything we wanted and we couldn't ask for more. Well, I get the message Thursday freaking morning, that the servers we're hosting the Intranet on, are not allowed to have the language PHP installed on them. That forum, is made entirely in PHP. About 20 minutes later, I have a 4 page sheet on my desk outlining all the languages and programs that are either preferred, accepted, or denied. Would this not have been helpful for me to have oh... say... back in NOVEMBER!!!! I told boss's boss that he can forget about his counselor communication method for the foreseeable future until I find something else that will work. Luckily for me, he's also a geek like myself and knew exactly how stupid it was for them to refuse to install PHP and didn't blame me for it in any way.

After work on Thurs my boss, MJ, and I all went out for a few drinks to celebrate MJ's birthday. It was a lot of fun even just the 3 of us. We all get along really well, both in a professional and personal environment. I'm sure though, that we looked like quite the odd gathering, a man almost in his 50's with kids starting college, a woman in her 30's with a guide dog, and a 24 year old just getting started. Personally, I think my boss just wanted to hear stories of MJ and I when we were in college so he had an idea what his daughters were actually doing while they were away at school, especially since I've spent weekends parting at the school his eldest now goes to.

Saturday(technically today), I'm taking my mother to see a play of Macbeth staring Patrick Stewart(Captain Jean Luc Piccard/ Professor X) in Brooklyn. It will be my second time going and I'm so very excited.... again. The first time was utterly amazing, and I look forward to any more nuisances that I can pick up on this time around.

Sunday we'll undoubted do our traditional hunt for plastic, money filled easter eggs. We've done it every year as long as I can remember, and I still find it amazing that my father can hide those eggs in the same room for 10 years and my brother and I still usually have trouble finding the last few. After dinner then I head back to Philly, just about for good. I've got monthly train passes for April from Philly, basketball and indoor soccer leagues(kickball was canceled much to my dismay) start in just under 3 weeks, and I'd like to actually spend some time living in my apartment and city. Wednesday E and I are headed to a 76ers game and at some point the last German and GC are coming in to hang out and see the bars... I mean... sights :-)

Tonight is the night, of the night of......

What a weekend, and it's only just begun. Let's just start with the fact that it's 4:21am my time and I'm up eating Grand's Oven Baked Biscut's and drinking tea because it's not quite safe to go to sleep yet... not because of how I feel, but because how of my best friend JP feels... *update, it's 4:49am and I just spent a half hour taking care of him in the bathroom. He's now comfortably sleeping on the bathroom floor*

Friday: We went out to New Hope. Awesome time, JP, Surfer and myself... the three amigos... (I just came up with that, it's late, shut up) went out for drinks to start the weekend of awesome. We went to Havana's, where we actually didn't see anyone we knew from high school, and just enjoyed the live music. Luckily for us, the band was actually pretty damn good that night. Craziness ensued... round after round of beer's ensued... and lots of great conversation on the presidential candidates policies about Immigration... no, I'm not joking. Randomly through the night, JP offered himself up to a random woman to dance, and we ended up spending the rest of the night dancing and talking and hanging out with their group as well. 4 of them and 3 of us made for one awesome group. We all danced... well, correction, JP and I danced while Surfer stayed with whomever was at the table and talked with them. Now, to better imagine this scene in your head, JP can dance, is pretty much the mac daddy of the group, and just all definitions of 'the man'... I on the other hand, while a good guy am not nearly as smooth as he is. So by saying dancing, it means he was dancing well, and I was getting points for effort just being out there. Long, self-deprecating story short, we had a blast, got their numbers and invited them to Memorial Day skydiving with us. I hope they come, it'd be an awesome time! We left the bar around 2am... maybe 1:30 ish but not before because we all had stuff to do in the morning. JP thought he was all set to drive home, until when we were walking back to his truck, he decided that it would be a good idea to do a pull up on the flagpole that one of the store's had up. Now, Surfer and I were waiting for the catastrophe that was about to happen, but JP was rather oblivious..... until the pole snapped down from the building's face and the end that used to be sticking up in the air was now being held up by the ground. At that point, we promptly continued walking while he gave me his key's to drive home. Smart plan.

Saturday: AL meeting in the morning... blah blah blah.... politics politics politics.... happy ending. JP picks me up from TCNJ to go back to my apt in Philly to start our crazy freaking Superbowl weekend. It's pretty much uneventful till the evening, we get food, hang out and talk with old friends, stop at the beer distributer to have some on hand for tomorrow, more friends come in, it's a grand old time. We head out to dinner, have dinner at what I believe is the same restaurant that Sly Stallone filmed Rocky's son watching the simulated Rocky/Dixon fight in.... (and that's just one of the big reasons I love Philly) and then all planned to go out for the night. We go to Fedo to start the night, and as much as E loves the place because it's somewhere he's been and likes making habits like that... the rest of us are kinda like, eh... music's not that great, atmosphere's not really that good, and drinks could be a bit better. *and then the clock struck 5:16am in real life, JP still passed out on the bathroom floor* So after we decide to go, E leaves J and I in charge of finding the next awesome place. And since, by his own description, J is a fabulously flamboyant homosexual, we decide that a gay bar is the best place to go to. (Side note, I do consider my life now complete since I've went to a lesbian bar in NYC with Distracted Spunk and a gay bar in Philly with, well, a group of people) We start walking until all the street signs have rainbows underneath them (no joke) and turn down a side alley, barely big enough for a car to fit down and stop at a door that has a huge crowd around it and a large rainbow flag flying proud and high (this is no exaggeration). I'm mildly concerned but trust J enough that if he says this place is better, then it's gotta be better. We walk in, make our way through the throngs of men, to the stairs to the second floor, the dance floor. We enter the second floor and it's a scene out of a gay movie I've never seen but always imagined. It was a dancing sausage-fest that almost made me nervous at first, but for whatever reason (I'm guessing the alcohol already in my system) I was alright enough to give it a shot. E got us all really really strong vodka/red bull's and that was it. J was quite right, despite my melancholy mood of the evening (due in part to DS's woe's of life and love) the music was better, the drinks were stronger/better, and the music was also worth listening/dancing to! J came over and said to me, "There's just something liberating about being at a gay bar that you can't find at any other bar." and quite frankly, he's right. It's not like I was looking for someone... but maybe it was just that we were all looking for ourselves there that made the atmosphere what it was. Anyway, as the night went, JP disappeared, E and his lady friend kissed for the first time, though under significantly dubious circumstances, J enjoyed the fact we were all on his territory and enjoying ourselves, and I was spending the bulk of my time txting DS, enjoying the music, and trying to analyze the atmosphere. The night ended roughly. JP's coat disappeared only to be found on another individual... and being in the current significantly inebriated state he was in (and currently still is, 5:37am) he had to be taken outside while I negotiated with the bouncers on his behalf, ultimately ending in his coat being returned and him walking away cursing off the bar staff who wouldn't deal with his belligerent behind. Me, JP and L walked home, stopped to oogle at the beauty of Independence hall, run in front of traffic, piss behind a dumpster, for JP to profess his undying love to L for finding such an article of sentimental value as his coat was, and then finally, finally to make it back to my apartment. At that point we stayed up and talked about all the different things that alcohol loosens our tongue's about. L and E went to sleep, I stayed up taking care of JP until this very minute still.

Sure, there's more I could go into... E and his lady friend's woe's tonight, E's profession of extreme thanks and commitment to our best friendship, JP's helping poor Michael bail his cousin out of jail, L and how good it was to have her with us, and I haven't even though about the plethora of emotions and feelings that passed through me all night - up to and through now... but I'll deal with me another time. I wish, I could write, that at 5:49am I'm going to sleep, but I'm actually not... I'll be up at least another hour to make sure JP is alright, as warm and as comfortable as he can be on the bathroom floor. This is why I was made to deal without sleep when necessary, right?

Choir concerts and missing the dead....

I missed my grandfather today, more than I have in a long time. This would be my father's father who lived in Florida until the time of his death. He came up to visit in when I was in high school, his next to last time up I believe. At the time I was either with K or on my way to being with her and we wanted to go do something with my grandfather. We decided since he said he liked music to take him to the all-eastern concert that was going on that weekend. We all piled in K's father's van and went to the show. It was one of the only things that I can remember that grandpa and I ever really did together and it was awesome. He loved the concert, and just couldn't get over how young the student's were and how good they sounded. My father said that he talked about going to that concert for months after. I purchased a CD of it and sent it to him, which he greatly enjoyed.

The point of this story, I guess, is that I went to another choir concert today and for one reason or another, I was struck with a feeling that grandpa would really have liked the concert and I wish he were there with me to see it. Don't know why it hit like it does, I guess with feelings like that we never do really know. I've been to plenty of other concerts since he died and none of them gave me that feeling... but I keep just going to back to the fact, that he'd have loved that concert.

E was glad that I came to see him conduct again. I've been to see almost every concert of his since he he was my student teacher. That's 7-8 years. I've seen his worst choirs, and his best choirs, bad and good song selections, the works. I may not quite comprehend why my coming every time means so much to him, but I can see it in his face every time he turns around and I'm there. There's so much more than just a simple "thank you, glad you came", it's much deeper than that, and it's a great feeling for me, even if I may not get it. He and his wife just had a baby girl, she's so freaking cute. I'm gonna give him a call in a few weeks and hopefully be able to get together for once outside of me showing up at all of his concerts.

And, I have to remember to write Tiny Dancer's letter tomorrow, I wouldn't want to let her down...