Homecoming '08

Edinboro, PA: It was quite slow at work on Saturday morning so the general manager convinced me to cut out early, around 12:30. Amanda and Townsend went to Edinboro for the university's Homecoming parade in the morning.

Apparently the parade was crap compared to what it used to be, so they weren't heavily entertained. To make matters worse, Townsend's grandfather (his dad's dad) was in an accident and was put in the hospital. Amanda took him home in the early afternoon to be with John.

I drove down to the Boro around two and we went to the new and improved Charlie's Pub in the Giant Eagle plaza. Charlie's used to be "Uncle Charlies"...I guess by taking down all the old-timey decorations and putting up big screen TV's you're suddenly not an "Uncle" kind of place. Food was the same, greasy. Service was the same, no waiters. *shrug* What would you expect, I suppose.

So the plan was to go to this pig roast at a house of a '97 classmate of Amanda's, Jeff Cullers. Our friend Allison was there and she already sounded pretty toasty. (Unfortunately I only ever see her in this mode.) Amanda and I parked down by Edinboro Lake and walked over to the gas station for a pop for me. (I'm on a semi-permanent break from drinking beer.) On the way back we saw a few old friends of mine at a fenced in party near the beer distributor and we decided to go check it out. Stayed for a couple minutes, saw that they were playing "apple dodgeball" (a sport reserved for folks south of the "Mason-Dixon line" aka I-90) and we left them to their devices.

Headed on down to the pig roast and it was a total disaster. A whole mess of people that I never looked up to kindly in high school, and Amanda felt about the same way. I don't mind social atmospheres as much anymore, but this time I felt like I had fleas on me. Couldn't stand being there. We left pretty quickly, once we were able to say hello to everyone we knew.

I got a phone call from one of the "apple dodgeballers", Curtis LeSuer, asking us to go over to Gary Barbour's place to hang out for a bit. So we went over and the afternoon was a rescued for the most part.

Got to catch up with Curtis, talked fantasy football shop and watched the ending of the Penguins-Senators game. Gary's got a nice little place! Amanda also got to meet the only other person I know that still likes Oasis, Eric Kraus. Typical Eric, bouncing between the hockey game, downloading smut on his laptop, bitching about how many fantasy points we get for return yards, and blasting Oasis's new single, "The Shock Of The Lightning".

When we left, Eric was walking around on stilts and they were getting ready to gear up for beer pong. There are times I wonder how in sam hell I got caught up with guys like that, but I'm still glad I have some friends that care that I'm around.

American Splendor: Got our newest movie from NetFlix last night, "American Splendor". Starring Paul Giamatti, the movie lays out the story of Harvey Pekar, a guy who grew up in the sluburbs (no typo, i just made that up) of Cleveland Ohio and ended up with a dead end file clerk job. He is the author of an underground comic strip which the flick was named from. Not really all "horsies and peppermints" of a story, just a real guy living a real life in the doldrums and finding something good out of it.

Couldn't help thinking of Chris Brown's comics. I wonder if he's inspired by that at all. Or if he'd ever heard of them. Anyway, if you folks haven't seen it and like the indie style of films, check it out. Giamatti is freaking awesome. Every movie I see by him impresses me more.

I'm Glad I Was There: A few days ago I blogged about a long term guest of ours who was rushed to the hospital. The last bit I'd heard about him, he'd been diagnosed with pneumonia and that he'd be back in a few days. Yesterday afternoon (a week later) I found out that he had taken a turn for the worse and slipped into a coma and that they weren't sure if he was going to make it out.

Unfortunately, probably around the time I was being told of this, he died yesterday morning. He had a rough battle the last few months and you could tell he wasn't the same happy guy we had here before. I won't forget what he said that afternoon when I was sitting with him in his room waiting for the paramedics.

"Its hell to get old," he said. "I don't recommend it."