A while ago I got my first tattoo. As I had never experienced it before I tried to choose a simple design so it would not take too long to set while giving me an idea of how it feels. “Your first tattoo is either your last, or the first of many.” In my case, it is the first of many.

A friend of ours inked it and it only set us back 40 bucks. He says all his tats have lifetime guarantees, meaning that if they ever need a touch up or anything, he will do that free of charge. He did the outline first which what I guess was the most ‘painful’. After that it was just filling the entire thing with solid black color. That was mostly just an unusual tingly sensation. He used a new tribal black, which supposedly doesn’t go green like tats of old, but stays black.

It took me a bit to pick the design, as I am very picky, but I finally found one I liked. The design was like only an inch in size so he tried scanning it and blowing it up but even that didn’t work so he had to draw a bigger version of it.

It’s a tiny shadow of a dragon, flapping it’s wings. I love it! I still want more done tho. I have picked a tribal dragon design that my baby will eventually set on my other arm. Later on when the money isn’t much of an issue there are several other tats I still want to get, but they’ll prolly be in full color so that will take an expert to get done.After a while my tat started to rise and scab all over, apparently there’s different reactions to getting one set. He told me to come back after it was all healed so he could do the final touch ups on it. I lost a little ink in the tail ’cause one day when I was playing with Ellen things got a lil’ rough and I got scratched badly, heh.

UPDATE:
Found an old pic, not a great one but at least you can see it now.

They seem to be very fond of fountains over here, there are lots of them all around town, and at the casinos. most of them lit up with lights at night. It is very pretty. Besides fountains, there are also a billion and one automatic sprinklers set in the grass everywhere. They turn on at night to wet the grass and everything around it, making it sometimes a very wet walk. ^_^ There’s one every few feet wherever there is grass or bushes.

People who know me, know that I am not very fond of water, or even getting wet. But there’s water everywhere here. All along the riverside is.. well.. the river (duh), which they say is all glacier water. So it’s cold even when it’s 100 degrees outside. Ellen likes to jump in it, clothes ‘n all. ‘course it’s so hot here that it doesn’t really matter since you dry up pretty quick. Every day there are dozens and dozens of people in the river. Either tubing, rafting, fishing, or just plain having fun, there are always people there.

So a while ago Sha and Ellen took me to the ‘pretty place’, it’s a park with lots of water and a big fountain located in the middle of it. I brought my camera that day so we got lots of video and pictures of it. Ellen went in the water almost immediately and beckoned for me to join her. I did, and got very, very wet. ^_^ Then I had to walk home barefoot, another thing I had never done before.

Actually there is no weed, well not mine.

My sister has finally passed away. Her morphine drip kept her alive longer than expected. I’m more worried about my father right now, he’s always felt he could have spent more time with her, but her mother and him didn’t leave each other on good terms and have never been since. He did however speak to her (as much as my sister could the cancer had moved to the throat with in the last two years) on the phone many times over the past month.

I am unsure of the funeral plans other than her cremation right now, I will however be wearing bright vibrant colors at whatever we do. She would have liked that. Happy rainbow-tastic dreams loves.

Peace <3

As of 2:05pm on September 20th 2006 not only have I been with him for 6 years but now we can file taxes as one person.
Gaia sings her praise with 29 mph (with gust of wind at 50 mph) winds.
All hail mother nature.

Apparently I can spell cognitive without thinking about it but perspective, a word I commonly use in speech, the ability to spell that escapes me.
Just thought I’d point it out.

(also apparently I can’t spell APPARENTLY, thank you spell checker)

Currently I’m playing shadowrun with Yal. I’ve got music pumping threw the apartment and eventually I’ll start dinner or we’ll go out to eat. I did not feel well this morning so i’ve only done general pick up and the dishes, I hope to go out tomorrow and make the “please for fuck sake hire me” rounds. I haven’t really read a book in about a month, I mean I’ve read things but not what I would call my normal book consumption. However I have been reading a few blogs and some short stories online so maybe that vaguely makes up for it. Not really since I’m thinking about it but it’s free and I tend to like free. I’m not losing any weight, you know why? Cause I’m not really trying. Gotta change that too.
This has been open since like noonish so I’m just gonna add this one and write some more later.

Peace out

So bit of an update.
Two of my fellow S.O.P tied the knot so congrats to them :D
I STILL HAVE NOT LANDED A JOB
I’m getting married in two weeks
My dear sister has not passed yet and I have spoken to her (be at peace my angel Jeniffer)
as you can see I haven’t updated DA with anything in awhile heh……………. I’ve got no real excuse for that
A dear friend of mine is returning to California.
I’ve been doing the happy dance all over my living room.
YOU KNOW WHAT TIME IT IS?!
HAPPY
DANCE
TIME
(totally just copped this from my DA journal for I AM LAZY!)

Peace

Things are changing so fast here now.. All wonderful changes!

Ellen is growing so fast and developing her “teenage” personality. She started middle school this year, a whole new “social scene” for her and that is a big change for her, she is adapting well tho.

Dmet is here finally ! ya i know a little late to post that, we have just been so busy learning each other and getting to really know one another. This has been the most fun and exciting change! We both have to get used to having someone else around. I thought this would be the hardest part for D but he took right to us! ( a sign?) I was afraid he would have problems with the noise and commotion of having a family and children around but he jumped right in and hasn’t had any problems. ( another sign ?) Its as if he has always been here. I have had to adjust to sharing my life with someone, tho tbh its not really a change for us, he has been a part of our lives even when he wasn’t here. Its all most like he has always been here, he was just away and is back now. Our lives have just joined completely on a level I can’t even begin to describe. It truly is amazing. So many things are happening and so fast that its hard to keep up with here. By the time I get time to write I need to write like 4 blogs heh. I am so glad he is here I need him so much. I can’t believe he was ever not part of our days!…

well more later.. off to work

[Date: Wednesday, July 12th, 2006]

The flight from AMS (Amsterdam Airport Schiphol) to ATL (Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport) was amazing. The flight itself wasn’t as exciting as most people made it out to be, but that was probably due to the fact that it lasted for nearly 10 hours.

However, the Delta personnel went out of their way to make us comfortable. I lost count of how many times I got free drinks, sometimes still holding my previous one. I only drank water though, I didn’t wanna be all dehydrated when I would finally arrive in Reno. Besides drinks we also got cookies, a warm lunch (I just ate the bun with lettuce ‘n stuff though), H�agen-Dazs ice-cream and OMG near the end of the flight they actually served us Pizza! Vegetable pizza, but pizza nonetheless! The personnel was all friendly ‘n stuff and if this was all an indication of how it goes in all their flights I’ll be sure to pick them again when able to.

The last leg of the trip was mostly turbulence, though it took me like 10 minutes after the warning to figure that out. It was more like your average bumpy train ride. It just seemed so normal that I didn’t really notice it. There was a point near the end when it got a bit heavier though, and just my luck, I had to pee! It didn’t seem as bad when I was sitting down, but as soon as I stood up… weeeeee! ^_^

Which reminds me, the seats were good, not perfect but good. I could easily put my feet on the floor and let my luggage under the chair in front of me. The person next to me, who had the window seat, was apparently doing some viral research as he had all these books about them on him. He was even marking certain sections of the books as he went through them. Even though I didn’t have the window seat I didn’t really miss all that much. Apart from the landing and the take off all you could see was white. I guess when you’re way up in the sky at 34,000 feet you are simply above the clouds. It was so bright, it was almost blinding!

Preparing for the landing was the best part. It was very much like a roller-coaster ride. Especially when it made those big sharp turns while making the descent. And when it did that I got awesome views of the USA for the very first time. It was amazing and very impressive. Getting closer each time, it seemed sorta unreal at first, like you’re just looking around with Google Earth. But once we got close enough I started to see movement… Cars! Wow! ^_^

I was a little worried about getting confused in the massive Atlanta airport but OMG it is sooo fast and easy to get around in there and not anywhere did it feel crowded at all. They got several concourses, each with their own array of gates. And if you want to go to another concourse you have to take sort of a mini train. The ride lasts only 30 seconds from stop to stop but it is so fast it felt like an amusement park attraction ride. The airport is very neatly layed out unlike our Schiphol which is a dreadfully crowded and confusing mess.

While I was sitting at gate B23, waiting for my flight to Reno, I still had like 5 hours to kill, so that’s when I started writing this entry in my little aluminum pocket notebook. The gate was still subject to change as I arrived so early, so I walked around a little and tried to rest up a bit as I didn’t get any at all on the previous flight.

Oh, I almost forgot to add that I was sorta interrogated at AMS for like 15 minutes (!). The guy in front of the gate just kept asking me all sorts of questions and even got a second guy to join in later on. I answered every question honestly but I was really afraid they wouldn’t let me board the plane. Needless to say they did finally let me go.

Quite the opposite experience I had at the US customs, apart from the fact I had to take off my shoes, which seemed a little odd but I guess is routine, I had no problems whatsoever. Neither was getting my passport stamped a big ordeal. He just asked me some simple questions and I was done. Where at AMS they actually wanted to know and see the contents of my bag and every other little detail right down to the phone number of the place I would be staying at, over at ATL it was all a breeze to go through. They took some digital scan of my index fingers and I had to look into a webcam for a picture of my eye(s).. I think.. They told me to take off my glasses.

The next flight to Reno, which was thankfully a bit shorter, was an adventure in itself. While the plane was much smaller, the atmosphere was good and the Delta personal was just as kind as in the previous flight.

I had a middle seat on the left side of the plane with an older man on my right, who was actually supposed to sit somewhere else I found out as his daughter (?) kept coming over every once in a while asking how he was, stating there was room next to her up front. He preferred to stay where he was though, nice guy. And to my left sat a young kid, like 16 years old, mostly listening to music or playing games with the VERY cool personal LCD monitor display fixed in the back of the seat in front of us. If you gave a dollar to one of the flight attendants you could watch movies such as Ice Age 2: The Meltdown or play games, which was what the kid was doing. He mostly played Bejeweled, and since it’s a touch screen as well he did quite well at it. Me, I mostly flicked through the channels looking for stuff to watch, mostly cartoons and “Which Line Is It Anyway?” because yes… they actually had cable TV on the plane. OMG awesome! That was all highly entertaining.

As time went by I started to get very tired though, so I slept some on the plane hoping I wouldn’t literally fall over like some narcoleptic when I would first see my beloved Sha in the flesh. I woke up again just before the plane started to make its descent to Reno Airport. Which again was an amazing sight to behold. This being already at the late evening you could see all the neon signs and everything, very cool.

It’s by this time I started to get pretty nervous about all of this… I got off the plane, took a whiz (I needed that) and proceeded to head towards to exit. I was very tired, ‘blind’, and my body hurt so I wasn’t really paying attention and walked straight past Sha, Ellen and the friends she brought. She called my name but I didn’t hear her and walked on, she called again and that’s when I turned and finally saw her. Talk about unreal. I had to sit down for a minute as I desperately tried to gather my thoughts again. She looked so beautiful, Ellen hiding right behind her (who later dropped to the ground outside the airport). We all talked for a brief period after which Ellen was going to go with Sha’s friends for a few days so that Sha and I could have some time for ourselves to really get to know each other. She rented a car for this occasion so we could just drive home and maybe do something the next day. (which we did, but more on that later)

My last post was way back when I was still in a different country, but I’ve been so incredibly busy with my new life (which I love by the way) that I just haven’t been able to find to time to actually update this thing.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing, I so have some things written down, and more in my head that I do intend to share with everyone. It’ll just take some time to for me to sit down, sort it all out and putting it in this blog thingee.

Over the course of the next few days (right, that’ll be weeks for sure) I’m going to attempt to get this up to date again. Posting dates may be out of whack and not always make sense but eh… you’ll figure it out.